Nostalghia (1983)
(Nostalgia)
Country: IT/USSR
Technical: col 126m
Director: Andrei Tarkovsky
Cast: Oleg Jankovsky, Erland Josephson, Domiziana Giordano
Synopsis:
A Russian poet researching the life of an eighteenth century expat composer in Italy is absorbed by thoughts of his wife and family and nostalgia for his country. His translator dutifully takes him to sites of historical interest and offers the chance of an erotic dalliance, but he is distracted by an eccentric holy man who shut up his wife and family for seven years.
Review:
A film that seems to be more about faith than nostalgia - after all, the director's films are peppered with reminiscences of childhood scenes, etc. - Tarkovsky's Italian film has breathtaking individual shots, like the misty opening scenes and the closing slow reverse track 'tableau', but is harder to gather together in its disparate parts than most. There is an Alsatian dog that finds its way into most scenes, present and 'absent', and a female character who seems a caricature of the modern, confused, post-Antonioni Italian woman: desperate for a man, but having no desire to go down the path of motherhood, and just a little hysterical. The film's crowning piece is a nine-minute uninterrupted take of the poet taking a lit candle from one end of a spa bath to the other, turning back each time it goes out: fire and water are as present as ever in this obscure work, the first reel of which has a soundtrack riddled with gramophone-like pops and crackles.
(Nostalgia)
Country: IT/USSR
Technical: col 126m
Director: Andrei Tarkovsky
Cast: Oleg Jankovsky, Erland Josephson, Domiziana Giordano
Synopsis:
A Russian poet researching the life of an eighteenth century expat composer in Italy is absorbed by thoughts of his wife and family and nostalgia for his country. His translator dutifully takes him to sites of historical interest and offers the chance of an erotic dalliance, but he is distracted by an eccentric holy man who shut up his wife and family for seven years.
Review:
A film that seems to be more about faith than nostalgia - after all, the director's films are peppered with reminiscences of childhood scenes, etc. - Tarkovsky's Italian film has breathtaking individual shots, like the misty opening scenes and the closing slow reverse track 'tableau', but is harder to gather together in its disparate parts than most. There is an Alsatian dog that finds its way into most scenes, present and 'absent', and a female character who seems a caricature of the modern, confused, post-Antonioni Italian woman: desperate for a man, but having no desire to go down the path of motherhood, and just a little hysterical. The film's crowning piece is a nine-minute uninterrupted take of the poet taking a lit candle from one end of a spa bath to the other, turning back each time it goes out: fire and water are as present as ever in this obscure work, the first reel of which has a soundtrack riddled with gramophone-like pops and crackles.
(Nostalgia)
Country: IT/USSR
Technical: col 126m
Director: Andrei Tarkovsky
Cast: Oleg Jankovsky, Erland Josephson, Domiziana Giordano
Synopsis:
A Russian poet researching the life of an eighteenth century expat composer in Italy is absorbed by thoughts of his wife and family and nostalgia for his country. His translator dutifully takes him to sites of historical interest and offers the chance of an erotic dalliance, but he is distracted by an eccentric holy man who shut up his wife and family for seven years.
Review:
A film that seems to be more about faith than nostalgia - after all, the director's films are peppered with reminiscences of childhood scenes, etc. - Tarkovsky's Italian film has breathtaking individual shots, like the misty opening scenes and the closing slow reverse track 'tableau', but is harder to gather together in its disparate parts than most. There is an Alsatian dog that finds its way into most scenes, present and 'absent', and a female character who seems a caricature of the modern, confused, post-Antonioni Italian woman: desperate for a man, but having no desire to go down the path of motherhood, and just a little hysterical. The film's crowning piece is a nine-minute uninterrupted take of the poet taking a lit candle from one end of a spa bath to the other, turning back each time it goes out: fire and water are as present as ever in this obscure work, the first reel of which has a soundtrack riddled with gramophone-like pops and crackles.