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The Sacrifice (1986)

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From Time Out London

Tarkovsky described film as a mosaic of ‘fixed time’, and for him, while making this, time was running out fast (he died from cancer shortly after winning the Cannes Grand Prix for it). The result was a film unrivalled in the history of cinema in the expression of sheer dread. Made in Sweden, it tells in deceptively simple terms of a literary critic, once an actor (Josephson), who promises to give up everything ‘that connects him with the world’ in a bid to save it from the impending nuclear holocaust he hears announced on television. For those willing to acccept the tenets of Tarkovsky’s cinema of spiritual quest, his esoteric notions of Christian iconography and his obscure approach to cinematic meaning, the film can seem nothing less than miraculous. And it’s true that ‘The Sacrifice’ is most beautifully composed and superbly shot. But however great is Tarkovsky’s mastery of mise-en-scène, or astounding his use of sound composition, it appears dehumanised and not a little egocentric, closer to a study of madness and self-delusion than, as I believe Tarkovsky hoped, an illustration of the power of faith and self-sacrifice.

Author: Wally Hammond

Time Out London Issue 1946: December 5-11 2007

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Technoguy said...

Posted on Jun 27 2008 02:28 This one just didn't come off.This is like trying to do free-verse in film.There is a sense of unearned transcendence with turgid egocentricity at it's core.Ok the man doesn't do narrative.Ok he despises plot.How else otherwise are we going to believe in vision than through the dynamic intermeshing of people,events and character.We know he's a poet,we know he's a visionary but just because he steps in the footsteps of a genius(Bergman) on the great man's island using some of his actor's and cameramen doesn't mean to say you've done a masterpiece.I didn't believe in anybody in this film.The emotions were all pseudo-intellectual,wobbly "words,words,words".A postman mentions Neitsche to the retired actor on his birthday
and we get a lot of cod philosophising.The family home looks like the left-over from a Checkov play but
without the humour ,realism,dialogue and depth.So a house gets burned down as part of this actor's sacrifice
to God to ward off nuclear holocaust. Part of the trouble for me was a poor,underwritten script so there was no tension,interplay nor truthfulness.I have enjoyed two of his films,Solaris and Andrei Rublev.That was because the director successfully integrated his vision in the material realization of his story in each case.Here we get wild,woolly,windy,vapid
nonsense:there is no emotional reality,we have not been induced into the right state of mind to receive
the subject.

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