Customer Reviews

Directed By Andrei Tarkovsky [VHS]

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A must see for Tarkovsky's fans! This insightful documentary concentrate on the making of Andrei Tarkovsky's final film, THE SACRIFICE, and was directed by Michal Leszczylowski, Tarkovsky's co-editor on that film. A Swedish film crew follows Tarkovsky during the filming, with the crew's Q & A sessions, rural musings, and clips from his films intercut, with the hair-raising highlight: the jamming of the camera during the first burning of the house that concludes The Sacrifice. In addition to showing Tarkovsky in action as he makes his picture, this documentary explains the motivation behind the film and contains illumination of Tarkovsky's working methods and style and how he overcame various technical problems during the film-making. The interviews with the actors, technicians (including cinematographer Sven Nykvist), and Tarkovsky himself are combined with on-the-set footage, outtakes, and excerpts from Tarkovsky's book "Sculpting in Time". The result is neither a standard behind-the-scenes promo nor a career overview, but an attempt to capture the essence of Tarkovsky's distinctive vision in his last and perhaps most moving film. Jonathan Rosenbaum in the Chicago Reader called it "a fascinating and intelligent portrait". One of the finest ever documentaries on a director.

DIRECTED BY ANDREI TARKOVSKY 1988, Michal Leszczylowski, Sweden, 101 min.