Quantity:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35

"Gorgeous"

Written By: Barry Gallegos

Incredible BW cinematography. Absolutely stunning imagery. If you are film afficianado, get this, watch it, absord it.

"one of the greatest films ever made"

Written By: Arnab Chakladar

a wonderful meditation on art and artistic detachment/autonomy. perhaps the most accessible of tarkovsky's films, and certainly the most beautiful to look at of them all--though some of the images in this film are quite terrible. your experience of cinema is incomplete without having watched this film.

"A stunning and thought-provoking film - but not for the faint-hearted or those with ADHD"

Written By: Utah Blaine

I watched this movie two days ago and can't stop thinking about it. It is also the first Tarkovsky film that I've seen. I've read quite a bit about his films, but this is the first one that I've watched. I mention this up front so that readers of this review can understand my perspective, I'm still trying to absorb what I saw. In short, this is an incredible, thought-compelling film, probably one of the best ever made. The praise for this film in some of the other positive Amazon reviews is well merited. It is a story about faith and about life, but mostly about figuring out what it is we are meant to do with our lives. Andrei Rublev is a painter of icons and cathedrals in the Orthodox Church in Russia during the late Middle Ages. As a young man he is widely acknowledged as the best at his craft in Russia, and is summoned to work on some of the most important projects. What follows is Rublev's lifelong journey through Russia. We watch his maturity and evolution as he questions the nature of his work and the nature of his faith. He witnesses some of the most brutal, cruel acts and treacheries by both friends and enemies. What really makes this a great film is the timeless nature of it's central theme: will we ever realize what it is we've been put on this Earth to do, even when it is staring us in the face?

This film will definitely take some discipline to sit through for 3+ hours, but you will be richly rewarded. As I was watching the film, I initially had to agree that it was too long, but once you see how everything fits together, I think you'll come to the conclusion that all is part of the whole. Tarkovsky wove a complex story in which the diverse themes presented early in the film are fully and richly developed as the film progresses. There isn't a lot of action in this film nor is there a directly linear plotline. This film is mostly dialog, so if `Lethal Weapon' is your kind of story, you should definitely avoid. There are also a few brutally graphic scenes in this film, so be forewarned. I'm sure that there is a great deal of symbolism in the film about communism, Russia, etc. that are totally lost on me. If I was to make a literary comparison, this film is like the works of Gabriel Garcia Marquez or Elias Khoury - a difficult read but worth the journey if you stick with it. A great film for a thinking man or woman, though, highly recommended.

"THE LOWDOWN ON THE TWO VERSIONS"

Written By: Mark Cheney

I have owned the Criterion edition of this film a long time; I recently bought the Ruscico (Russian Cinema Council) edition and think I should try to make clearer the differences. This is not a critique of Tarkovsky's work -- that is beyond my capabilities.

As you may already know, the Criterion edition is taken from Martin Scorsese's personal print and represents the penultimate version of the film, while the Ruscico edition represents the release version, which is about twenty minutes shorter. However, Tarkovsky did more than pare twenty minutes off the film -- it's actually a somewhat different film, though the differences are not major.

To begin with, the Scorsese print (Criterion) has a completely different set of credit titles and intertitles, and at that stage the film was titled "Strasty po Andreyu" (Passion of Andrei). The release version (Ruscico) is titled "Andrei Rublev" and is not merely shorter: it contains shots that do not appear in "Strasty po Andreyu" (Criterion). Commenting on the DVDs themselves, the Ruscico DVD is much better looking. The subtitles (as one might imagine) are written by someone whose native language is Russian, and that is very important to me. When the subtitles are written by an English-speaker they are rendered in English idioms and subtle, specific meanings are often lost. Sometimes one cannot even tell what a scene is about. (There is a scene in Criterion's "Ivanovo Detstvo", for example, where the English-written subs completely obscure the point of a scene, while the Russian-written English subs in Ruscico's version make it perfectly clear.) Russian-written English subtitles are sometimes ungrammatical, use idioms whose meanings are unclear to non-Russian speakers, and sometimes even inadvertantly use a word from yet another language (French, in one case that I saw), but I'll take subs written by someone whose native language is that of the film any day. In fact, if you see a version of any foreign film with English-written subs first, then see a version where the English subs were written in the film's country of origin, it will be like seeing a whole new film. (A spectacular example is the difference between Kino's "Zerkalo" [Mirror] and Ruscico's -- there is NO comparison [Ruscico wins!], except that you have to avoid Ruscico's 5.1 audio remix and select the original mono.)

Additionally, an extra of great interest is hidden away on Ruscico's "Andrei Rublev" DVD. In the individual filmographies certain titles are highlighted: these are accompanied by trailers, four of which are for Tarkovsky films. These trailers are made up largely of shots that are entirely different from anything that appeared in the final film, so should be of absorbing interest to any fan of his work.

To sum up: Although I prefer the long version represented on Criterion's disk ("Strasty po Andreyu"), the Ruscico disk has a superior image, better subtitles (to my way of thinking), and fascinating extras if you can find them. Get both DVDs.

"As a film editor I can appreciate it-but not the story"

Written By: All Red

When you work in the world of film, you start to look at things differently then you may have looked at them before. If I was to say that I loved the "story" of 'Andrei Rublev', I would be a liar. In fact, I hated it vehemently as I just viewed it again for the first time in a few years; BUT as a piece of filmmaking art, I can look at the typical Tarkovsky long and lingering shots and appreciate the work of a man in love with his camera. Tarkovsky's work appeals to me, not for his ability (or lack thereof) to tell a story, but to create mood. Now that is not appealing to many people, and certainly not worth the $ to pay for a DVD or VHS copy of this film. (Note: there are several versions of this film available that vary in length due to various edits this film has undergone.)

If you are planning on learning about an religious icon painter named Andrei Rublev, this film will not teach you anything, because what little to nothing is known about him is merely conjecture here on Tarkovsky's part. Tarkovsky's idea of plot is a bell, a jester and tartar hordes which frankly , in my mind, make no real sense; BUT, again, if you are viewing the film to learn about Tarkovsky's work as an artist, by all means rent this. It is, in my view, almost ponderously langorous (if that makes sense!). You must have an attention span that even outlasts mine (which is darned good frankly!).