Tarkovsky’s Andrei Rublev

The Andrei Tarkovsky retrospective brought to local screens by Spazju Kreattiv comes to an end today with the Russian master’s Andrei Rublev. The film is a biography of sorts, as Andrei Rublev was a 15th-century monk regarded as Russia’s most esteemed icon writer. While his work is well known and celebrated throughout Russia, little is known of his life except for the handful of icons he left behind. Tarkovsky’s invented life for Rublev is not quite an investigation into the author’s life but a response to what Tarkovsky saw and felt by looking and meditating on Rublev’s icons. Through Andrei Rublev, Tarkovsky created a film about faith in a time when there were no films about religion, apart from satire or anti-religion propaganda. It does not flinch from portraying the savagery of the time – the sack of Vladimir, the casting of the bell, the pagan ceremonies of St John’s Night and the Russian crucifixion – set-pieces from which, almost inexplicably, the serenity of Rublev’s art arose. The film is being screened as part of the Sculpting Time: Andrei Tarkovsky Retrospective remastered in new digital prints. Tarkovsky (1932-1986) firmly positioned himself as the finest Soviet...