"The Passion According to Anrei: Andrei Rublev" historically realistic movie that it heavy in some parts but very enlightening in others. What is so amazing about this movie is that it tells a story of a World so very different from our own. It took me 5 times watching it to get all the facts somewhat straight. And trust me - if you watch this movie just once, you will have missed out on a great lot of this story.

This movie tells of a life of a talented man of amazing soul who has confined himself to the service of God, a man whose world was enormously influenced by religion, by art, and by the intertwining of the two. Unlike many others, he also possessed a gift to express his own beliefs in form of icons he painted - and these icon have lasted centuries such that people today can come and observe them contemplating solely on their artistic achievements or on the religion they depict.

Andrei Rublev was born a True artist, a fact that can be observed from the movie in his relations to good and evil, masterpiece and destruction. He kills a man in defense of a girl, but later he promises himself to abstain from speaking partly in punishment but perhaps more in sorrow for this broken world. This happens during Tartar raid, which was sponsored by a Russian king uprising against his own brother. Andrei witnesses killing, destruction, rape, and pillaging of the king's city - and after throwing an axe that kills one of the Tartars, he later on stops speaking. His speech is brought back, however, after he witnesses what is almost a miracle. A young boy promises the victorious king to build a bell that would ring loud and clear. Although the boy lies about knowing a secret of bell-building, he goes on, and simply by the power of his own talent and his dedication to this work builds one that works. The miracle performed by this boy inspires Andrei to believe in the blessedness of art and the miraculous power of one's talent.

Directed by Andrei Tarkovskii, this movie was co-authored by Andrei Konchalovsky. They worked for two years, but after a screening in 1966 the movie was not allowed to be shown in the Soviet Union. Most likely because it depicted a negative relation between people and their oppressive government. Also likely because of the nudity, which was amoral to show on TV screens of the former USSR. Later it was screened in Cannes Movie Festival in 1969 where it was awarded the International Critics' Prize.

In the paragraphs below, I'd like to go over a couple of points that I missed (almost missed missed) during this movie. After all, it took some thinking and discussion with other people to figure some scenes out. Thus I'll try to remember and review them here:

1. At the very start the villagers are running to prevent the launch of the air balloon. Why? Well in those dark ages anything our of the ordinary could have easily thrown people out of balance. They do no understand, they fear, and they need to let aggression out somehow.

2. All jesters were out of the law - not just that particular one. Feared by the government because they spoke what they wanted, any one of them could be turned in by any person. This particular ones speaks something against God which provokes one of the monks to turn him in. We see this jester later in the movie, so he probably did not meet untimely death...

3. Theophanes the Greek hires Andrei instead of Kirill because Kirill still has a lot of issues to work out with his vanity.

4. What they are eating in the monastery during the time of hunger are rotten apples, cutting the rotten pieces out.

5. The girl saved by Andrei falls in love with the Tartar, though it may be hard to discern this fact from their words and facial expressions.

6. Two men fighting with huge logs outside when authorities arrive for the jester are extremely drunk - that was easy to see however.

7. The people blinded in the forest are artists that have decorated the palace of one of the two brother-kings, Vladimir. They are walking toward another brother's city when they are approached by the riders that blind them. The riders are sent by the king for whom they just did the job. He is jealous that they could do a better job in his brother's city. Horrible incident that did take place numerous times in history.

8. The fact that a Russian king hired foreign invaders to erase his brother's city of the face of the earth hits hard the hopes for a creation feelings of nationality in Russia. Russians were deeply divided populations then, and many have realized it to their great sorrow. Hiring Tartars demonstrates that hatred between kings in Russia could be so vast as to prefer invaders to a blood relation, in this case a brother.

9. The victorious brother orders the bell to be cast to "make it up" before God for what he has done to his brother. Bells were symbols of purity. They were rung on great holidays and events of marriage. Many believed that the sound of the bell dispersed the evil spirits. Casting a bell also required large input of money / materials / work-power as seen in this movie. At any time, it was a great undertaking. If the bell failed, Boris, the boy, would have died a horrible death.

10. At the very end of the movie, Andrei returns to the same very monastery that we see two monks visit at the start of the movie. There he will paint his Holy Trinity.


Andrei Tarkovskii also directed "Ivan's Childhood/My Name Is Ivan" (1962), "Solaris/Solyaris" (1972), "Mirror/The Looking Glass" (1975), "Stalker" (1979), "Nostaghia/Nostalgia" (1983), and "The Sacrifice" (1986). All of these movies portray one great common theme of human spiritual struggles. His first film "Ivan's Childhood" won the Golden Lion at Venice Festival. "The Sacrifice", primarily Sweedish production about human self-destructing tendencies and the end of the world, was Tarkovskii's final production. This great director and screenwriter died from cancer while being in exile in Paris, 1986.



Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Better than Watching TV
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older