Event

Andrei Rublev

With his second feature, a towering epic that took him years to complete, Andrei Tarkovsky waded deep into the past and emerged with a visionary masterwork. Threading together several self-contained episodes, the filmmaker traces the renowned icon painter Andrei Rublev through the harsh realities of fifteenth-century Russian life, vividly conjuring the dark and otherworldly atmosphere of the age: a primitive hot-air balloon takes to the sky, snow falls inside an unfinished church, naked pagans celebrate the midsummer solstice, a young man oversees the casting of a gigantic bell. Appearing here in Tarkovskys preferred 183-minute cut, as well as the version that was originally censored by Soviet authorities, Andrei Rublev is an arresting meditation on art, faith, and endurance, and a powerful reflection on expressive constraints in the directors own time.

"A mesmerizing portrait of an artist and cleric undone by a world that is cruel, chaotic, unexplainable." VILLAGE VOICE

"It is not a film that needs to be processed or even understood, only experienced and wondered at." GUARDIAN

Someone was expressing what I had always wanted to say! INGMAR BERGMAN

"A strong contender for the greatest Soviet film, Andrei Tarkovskys second feature (completed in 1966 but not shown publicly until 1969 and not released in its native country until 1971) is immersive and overwhelming, steeping viewers in a stunningly detailed recreation of the medieval world and offering profound meditations on the nature of human suffering, the social value of art and religion, and the possibility of achieving transcendence in earthly affairs." CINE-FILE