054 - Andrei Rublev, 1966, Soviet Union. Dir. Andrei Tarkovsky.

Thursday, February 23, 2017

054 - Andrei Rublev, 1966, Soviet Union. Dir. Andrei Tarkovsky.

How can she be a virgin if she has a son?

That is the question.  The mystery of faith.

A Tatar asks the question.  The Mongols have invaded Russia. 

This is in violation of the belief quoted by the locals, "No Tatar shall ever set foot on Russian soil."

That did not work out.

They have attacked the city of Vladimir, killed men, raped women, burned buildings, speared horses, and set cows on fire.  They are now at the church.  A couple of them take a moment to observe the artwork they see before setting fire to it.

Andrei Rublev is the artist.  He painted the artwork.  The altarpieces.  He is inside the church.

Many of the town's citizens are inside the church.  Taking refuge.  They are massacred.

The blood of Christians is seed.

A man is tortured for information.  Where is the gold located?  He does not answer.  They melt a crucifix and pour the liquid metal in his mouth, tie him to a horse, and drag him through the streets.

These are not good people.

Andrei Rublev has with him in the church a woman named Durochka.  She is slow.  He protects her.  He kills a man in self-defense.  With an axe.

He and Durochka survive the massacre.  He imagines himself having a conversation with an older painter, Theophanes the Greek, now deceased, who had hired him years ago to paint with him.  He talks to him, confesses, seeks wisdom.  He has lost his paintings.  Humanity is evil.  He himself has sinned in killing a man.  What should he do?

Andrei Rublev decides to take a vow of silence and give up painting.

This is Act Six of eight acts.  Plus a prologue and epilogue.

We are in the middle of a three-and-a-half hour war epic.

Or are we?

Perhaps we are watching a biographical film of a historical figure.

Or a historical fiction of the time preceding the Tsars.

Or a meditation on the role of art and the artist in society, in this society, using another time to comment on the contemporary.

Or a contemplation on faith.  A theological film.  A moving icon.

Or all of these things and more.

Andrei Rublev is a master work by a master filmmaker.

He gives us aerial shots.  Extreme wide shots.  Highly composed shots.  Landscapes.  Framed around buildings, trees, and other objects.  Extreme close-ups.  Highly choreographed long takes.  Architecture.  Animals.  Weather.  Nature.  Texture.

We never witness Andrei Rublev in the act of painting.  Yet we contemplate the function of his art.  And consider the mysteries of faith and worship.

Sometimes we do not see him at all.

It is the story of three painters.  And a fourth.

The second act focuses on his colleague Kirill, who first meets Theophanes the Greek, who first is offered the job, and who offers first to serve him as a slave for life.  If only Theophanes will send for him at the monastery in front of the others so that they may know he wants him.

Theophanes does send his messenger to the monastery.  But sends for Andrei Rublev instead.  Kirill will abandon the monastery, accusing its adherents of being lovers of money.

The third act is a series of conversations.  Meditations on faith and sin.  Between Andrei Rublev and his current assistant Foma, between Andrei Rublev and Theophanes the Greek, and through the telling of the story of the crucifixion.

The fourth act is a pagan feast.  With naked people carrying torches.  Running headlong into the river.

Andrei is out of place here.

They know it too.  They tie him to a cross.  That will teach you not to trespass on our party.  A naked woman sets him free.  She defends their practices.  They are engaged in ritual too.

There is no irony in this scene.  It is not comfortable for him.  He is genuinely devout.  He does not wish to participate in this revelry.

He wishes to leave.

In the final chapter they will cast a great bell for the church.

Kirill will return and plead with Andrei Rublev to paint again.  He will repent for his own jealousy.

Many more things happen in this film.

The Grand Prince and his mansion and his campaigns.  His brother and his brother's betrayals.

At the same time, many things do not happen.

Not all is action.  Much is reflection.

The mysteries of faith.

Watch and reflect.  Watch and see.

In the epilogue the camera moves across the icons themselves.  The real ones.  That the real Andrei Rublev painted.  In full color.

We stop and look.  And contemplate.

The film itself becomes an icon.

Every frame a Rublev.


*                               *                               *                               *                               *


Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord.  Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow.

When we saw Three Colors: Blue (017, January 17), we watched as the choir sang 1 Corinthians 13.

This is the second movie we are seeing where long sections from this passage are delivered to the viewer.

We hear 1 Corinthians spoken in voice-over as Andrei Rublev plays joyfully with a little girl in the church.

When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child, but when I became a man, I put away childish things.  For now we see through a glass, darkly, but then face to face.  Now I know in part, but then shall I know even as also I am known.  And now abideth faith, hope, and charity, but the greatest of these is charity.

Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.  And though I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.  And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.

Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil, rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth, beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.

Charity never faileth, but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.  For we know in part. . . .


And the verse is given in part.

The girl splashes milk on him.  He stops reciting.  He laughs.  He corrects her.

He practices what he confesses.