645. STALKER (1979)

Running Time: 163 minutes
Directed By: Andrei Tarkovsky
Written By: Arkadi Strugatsky, Boris Strugatsky, from the novel The Roadside Picnic by Arkadi and Boris Strugatsky
Main Cast: Alexander Kaidanovsky, Anatoli Solonitsyn, Nikolai Grinko, Alisa Friendlich
Click here to view the trailer

TARKOVSKY WEEK: THE FINAL CHAPTER

Finally we made it! It was only four films, but I'll say it was four of the most challenging films that I've had to get through. Not only were they boring, but they also came with the pressure of having Tarkovsky's name attached to them and thus, I REALLY wanted to like them - at least one of them.

Stalker is nearly three hours and starts out as a black & white film, a man getting out of his bed while his wife and daughter go on sleeping, preparing for what seems like a day of work. This man is identified only as the Stalker and is going to meet a man, identified only as the Writer. The Stalker's purpose is to navigate people into The Zone, a paranormal place where there exists a room, a room that will make the hopes & dreams of anyone who enters come true. The Writer has requested to be taken into the Zone and brings along with him a second man, the Professor. The three meet in a bar, despite warnings from the Stalker's wife not to go, as it's very dangerous. You see, the Zone is guarded by a police force who are put in place to prevent trespassers into the Zone. Basically the whole movie is the three men's journey into the Zone, past the guards, through a wooded area and eventually down, what looks like a sewer drain and eventually into the Zone. Along the way, the film is filled with reflection from the characters, as well as philosophical thoughts and questions, arguments between the men and curiosity about what exists in "the room".

SPOILER ALERT!

So I watched this film in three sittings and I want to take you through my thoughts during each sitting. I started the film on Sunday afternoon, following my writing of the Chinatown review. I went in expecting to dislike it, especially after my low opinion of The Mirror, but I'd seen stills that looked glorious and have heard great things, so I was hopeful. I made it through about forty five minutes before having to stop to go pick up my wife and I was bored out of my skull. Not a lot was happening and the dialogue was really hard to get into. A whole monologue by the Writer about how he doesn't believe in the paranormal comes to mind as a particularly mind numbing piece. Anyway, Sunday night rolls around, my wife hits the hay and I decide to fire the movie back up and manage to take down about another hour and it was during this hour that I actually started to, kind of like the movie. I wasn't in love with it or anything, but my curiosities started to grow about what we'd find at the end of this journey. What would the Zone be like? What would "the room" be like? How would Tarkovsky film this place that has been built up intensely? Speaking of the camera, I hated how we were kept at such a distance. There were times that we were so far away from the actors, that I couldn't tell who was talking and trying to piece together a conversation was a bit difficult, at times. Anyway, I got too tired on Sunday night, so I tapped out, opting to finish the film the next day when I was wide awake. Fast forward to Tuesday morning, when I finally got around to finishing the film and man what a huge letdown. They don't even go into the room!? What a ripoff! The filming of the Zone was pretty cool though, with those mini mountains of, what looked like sand and the seasick looking color of the whole screen, making the whole thing feel definitely otherworldly.

I have a feeling this is one that not a lot of people liked on first viewing. Hey, I hated 2001: A Space Odyssey the first time I saw it, but I persisted, seeing it a few more times and when I watched it most recently for THE BOOK, I actually liked it a lot. I feel like a few more viewings of that film will have it near the top of my favorite films list and I feel like this movie is along the same lines. I could see myself liking this. Hell, unlike Andrei Rublev and The Mirror, there's actually some serious plot development going on here, as opposed to Tarkovsky's usual reminiscing style, his pondering attitude. It's three men traveling from point A to point B on a long journey. It's The Wizard of Oz and The Lord of the Rings, except it's nothing like those, because it's Tarkovsky and love him or hate him (I'm closer to the latter), you must admit he has a style all his own and no one is ever going to duplicate his style. I also don't think anyone is ever going to 100% understand or decipher his pictures, because I think in order to do that, you'd have to exist inside his head. I feel like his movies are the most personal movies I've ever seen. Not only is he making movies he wants to watch, but he's making movies injected and marinated in his own thoughts, his own opinions, his own observations, his own theories. Stalker has a ton of dialogue that lost me or left me scratching my head and I feel like that was maybe the intended reaction, to get me thinking, to get me scratching. I'm babbling now, so I'll quit.

RATING: 5/10  I'll cut it right down the middle and say that I really need to probably see this one again, maybe in about ten years. Sorry Tarkovsky fans, but I'm glad I'm done with him. The Sacrifice is streaming on Netflix and being an Erland Josephson fan, I wanted to check it out, but now I don't know.

MOVIES WATCHED: 919
MOVIES LEFT TO WATCH: 82

April 15, 2015  9:14am

581. Zerkalo/The Mirror (1974)

Running Time: 106 minutes
Directed By: Andrei Tarkovsky
Written By: Aleksandr Misharin, Andrei Tarkovsky
Main Cast: Margarita Terekhova, Filipp Yankovsky, Ignat Daniltsev, Larisa Tarkovskaya, Alla Demidova
Click here to view the trailer

TARKOVSKY WEEK: CHAPTER THREE

I know, I know, you didn't know whether I was lying in a ditch or what and I should've called if I was going to be late. I'm sorry. Things have just been busy for me and when I do get down time to watch movies, I've been watching random stuff, with my wife and I didn't even suggest watching The Mirror, as I knew it wouldn't be for her. I also fully realize that Tarkovsky WEEK is turning into Tarkovsky MONTHS, but that's okay, we'll just pretend it's all normal. Anyway, on with the show.

Not going to have much to say here, as I was sort of baffled by The Mirror and honestly, it was a real clock watcher for me. I can't even begin to string together any sort of plot synopsis, so I'll get right into my review so that I can wrap this up quick and with any luck I'll get in another BOOK movie later today.

Supposedly The Mirror was very autobiographical, but when it jumped back and forth between characters, black & white, dreams and reality, it got difficult to piece together and unfortunately, it just wasn't compelling enough for me to care to bother with trying to understand what the hell was going on. I was bored throughout and honestly, unless Stalker REALLY blows me away, I can honestly say that Andrei Tarkovsky simply isn't the filmmaker for me. As much as he's lauded for his artistic abilities and is an inspiration for other filmmaker's I do enjoy (Lars Von Trier, namely), I'm disappointed that I can't get into him, but I'll leave his movies to the ones who herald them as art pieces and I'll stick with guys like Woody Allen and Alfred Hitchcock to fill out my Best Director ballot. I will say, however, that any points I give to The Mirror will all be presented for the imagery alone. Such beautiful shots, as Tarkovsky proves he can frame the perfect shot in both color and black & white. One image that comes to mind as a favorite is a shot of the main character, played by Margarita Terekhova, running down a street lined with trees. It was definitely a shot that, despite my boredom, made me pop my eyes open a little wider and take notice. There were two handfuls of great shots in The Mirror and if the film is indeed a "must see" then it's for the imagery alone and not necessarily for any other reasons, although I'm sure Tarkovsky lovers are all about this one, as it's mind bending and personal enough to really encapsulate what Tarkovsky was all about. Me, I prefer Solaris and even that didn't blow me away.

RATING: 3/10  Anything lower would seem unfair and anything higher wouldn't be an accurate depiction of my opinion. I'm going to try REALLY hard to have Stalker watched and reviewed by Monday night. Bear with me.

MOVIES WATCHED: 916
MOVIES LEFT TO WATCH: 85

April 1, 2015  9:52am

549. Solyaris/Solaris (1972)

Running Time: 165 minutes
Directed By: Andrei Tarkovsky
Written By: Fridrikh Gorenshtein, Andrei Tarkovsky, from novel by Stanislaw Lem
Main Cast: Donatas Banionis, Natalya Bondarchuk, Jun Jarvet, Vladislav Dvorzhetsky, Nikolai Grinko
Click here to view the trailer

TARKOVSKY WEEK: CHAPTER TWO

So it looks like Tarkovsky Week is actually going to end up becoming Tarkovsky Month, as it's just taking an insane amount of time to get movies from Netflix nowadays. Add to that the fact that I'm barely watching any BOOK movies lately and filling up on other stuff and it's slow going. If all goes as planned, however, I'll knock out The Mirror by mid-week.

Most of you have probably heard of Solaris, even if it's because of the 2002 remake starring George Clooney. The film begins by introducing us to the characters and setting up the events that are to take place over the course of the next three hours. We meet Kris Kelvin (Banionis), a former accountant and current psychologist who is all set to travel to a space station that is orbiting Solaris, a planet consisting basically of one giant ocean. We also meet Burton, a scientist who once lived upon the space station and who was called back many years prior for exhibiting strange behavior. In newsreel like footage, we learn that Burton was brought in front of many other scientists who has a vested interest in the Solaris station to testify of what he saw while searching for two lost scientists. Burton testified that he saw a four meter tall child floating outside the window of the station, not to mention yellow sludge creeping out of the Solaris ocean. He basically becomes a laughing stock, despite being a friend of Kelvin's family. Kelvin will travel to the Solaris station the following morning, to decide whether or not the station should continue functioning or whether it should be shut down. Once there, Kelvin learns that of the three scientists residing on the station, one has committed suicide (Dr. Gibarian). Left are Dr. Snaut and Dr. Sartorious, whom both warn him to stay calm if he happens to see anything out of the ordinary. In fact, it doesn't take long and Kelvin does see something out of the ordinary - his wife, who had died many years before. We'll leave it at that...

SPOILER ALERT!

This was all fine and good...to a point. The idea is, obviously, a fantastic one. A planet that can read your mind and bring your fantasies/memories to fruition. I mean, that's genius, isn't it? The film looks great too and while Andrei Rublev was, sort of, an intimidating film due to it's stature and probably because it was my first Tarkovsky, this one was a more comfortable fit, for me personally. I loved the set design, the visual feasts and of course, the marvelous camera work, all working to accentuate this foreign idea on this foreign planet. It needed to look like something other worldly and it totally did. This was sci fi personified, the mother of all sci fi films and one that isn't that hard to get into, even if you're a sci fi hater (like me).

But, like I said, it's all good to a point. At about the time that the birthday party scene rolls around, it starts to get boring and that final hour or so was a tough one, I won't lie. By the time we got into the last twenty or so minutes, I was done and of the opinion that this just needed to end. What is it about these big sci fi films (I'm thinking this and 2001) that HAVE to be long? I really like 2001 (better than this, for the curious), but still admit that it's too long and COULD HAVE ended a little sooner. Solaris could've ended a LOT sooner and I wish it had. Had Tarkovsky and crew kept this film to right around one hundred minutes, hell even two hours, I probably would be lauding it as a masterpiece now. Pieces of classical music played over Kelvin and his wife staring at each other were doing nothing for me and ultimately, nothing was ever solved. In fact, there really wasn't an ending at all was there. Okay, sure, so Kelvin never gets off Solaris and instead simply THINKS he does, but is that really a suitable ending? Will Kelvin spend the rest of his life meeting multiple Hari's forever? Also, wouldn't it have been more appropriate if Kelvin and Hari were madly in love when she died on Earth? Instead, the back story is that they had actually separated and the marriage was basically null & void when she committed suicide. I don't know, maybe the fact that I'm asking all these questions is a good thing. Obviously the movie made me think and there's nothing wrong with that, ever. I could probably go for another viewing of this and I wouldn't be surprised if after two or three more watches, I was in love with this one. However, for now...

RATING: 6/10  Call it a '6' and definitely a "must see" which is as good a compliment as any, especially when you consider that there are movies in THE BOOK that I really like, that I might not particularly consider MUST SEE.

MOVIES WATCHED: 914
MOVIES LEFT TO WATCH: 87

March 14, 2015  6:44pm

504. Andrei Rublyov/Andrei Rublev (1969)

Running Time: 205 minutes
Directed By: Andrei Tarkovsky
Written By: Andrei Konchalovsky, Andrei Tarkovsky
Main Cast: Anatoly Solonitsyn, Nikolai Grinko, Nikolai Sergeyev, Nikolai Burlyayev, Ivan Lapikov

NOTE: The title will say TARKOVSKY WEEK, but be warned that it's going to last a lot longer than a week. I'm getting five movies from Netflix now, but only two BOOK movies and with Netflix saying the post office is slowing up on the delivery of movies in 2015, it's now taking two days for me to get envelopes from them, so it's going to last a while. Be prepared for maybe one Tarkovsky film per week, for the next four weeks, with things spliced in, in between. I noticed that there were four of the BOOK movies airing on TCM in the next week, so I've set up my DVR to catch those ones. Also, my current plans have me knocking out anything that's over three hours soon, so as not to be left with it at the end. By my count, there's still seven films clocking in at 180 minutes plus, so expect those soon. Now then...

TARKOVSKY WEEK: CHAPTER ONE

Well, my wife's jury duty thing ended up lasting all day, so I managed to get this one knocked out yesterday, all in one sitting. Let me tell you it was no easy feat tackling all 205 minutes of this in one sit down, but I managed.

To be honest, I don't even feel like plodding through a plot synopsis for this one, mainly because it's a 205 minute movie, so detailing the plot would take a while, but also because I just don't want to. If you go to Wikipedia and search the film, there's actually a really well written, super detailed plot synopsis on there, so I'd recommend going that route if you must know every in and out of this movie before watching it, but assuming you've seen the film already or else you wouldn't be reading this, let's just jump right into my thoughts, shall we?

My first impressions are that Tarkovsky is going to be a challenge for me. He's someone I want to like (at least one - come on, just one!) but actually don't think I will, no matter how hard I try. For the record, I tried REALLY hard with Andrei Rublev, but ultimately, I just couldn't settle in. I take that back, I was fine up until the "The Raid" chapter and that's where the film lost me, I think. Sure, not a lot was happening, but I was with it and it was mildly interesting. Andrei's a famous painter....Kirill is a whiny, envious brat....Danil is a little envious too, but more saintly than Kirill. But then the character's of the prince, the prince's brother, Boriska and Durochka are introduced and it all got too muddled for me. So I'm one of these guys who likes, at least a little bit, of entertainment with his films (so sue me) and this one really is 0% about entertaining and more about Tarkovsky just being a poet, a deep thinker and a tortured soul. The whole thing is apparently one big "fuck you" to the Soviet government, which sort of puts it into the category of political statement, rather than making a movie for the sake of the plot. I won't go so far as to say I hated it, but I didn't like it, that's for sure. I won't even go so far as to say the 205 minutes dragged by (it had nothing on Satantango, which took me a week to watch and was a real clock stopper!), the minutes rolled on just fine and when I'd think I should be at a certain point, I'd check the timer and I was usually pretty close, so it had that going for it. For those of you who just can't get enough Andrei Rublev, I'll leave you to it. As Woody Allen once said, this film is like doing homework (he didn't say that about Andrei Rublev in particular, but said it about certain films in general). Here's hoping Stalker (which from the stills I've seen, looks great) or Solyaris (I'm intrigued) blow this out of the water and blow me away, but I won't hold my breath.

RATING: 4/10  That's about as good as she gets and damn it people, I tried, I really did. Speaking of Woody Allen, I'm tinkering with the idea of putting up another random Woody Allen review sooner, rather than later...stay tuned.

MOVIES WATCHED: 911
MOVIES LEFT TO WATCH: 90

February 19, 2015  6:52pm