tue-56162 I believe all art should strive towards some spiritual diviness, call it god, love or happiness, life itself, doesn't matter. It is a search for answer, for greatness, something bigger than oneself, something unexplanatory, only reachable through art, and The Mirror is like that light in the dark that finds this answer and expresses this spiritual divineness with such a tight grip on life itself, such an understanding that words, and our beloved logic and science, can't grasp or even comprehend. I believe Andrei must have been a person of great spiritual understanding and longing, otherwise how could he have been able to make this. The plot of the movie is tough to get around, but i don't think it's important to understand or try to describe this non-linear complexity. Everything is tied together through beautiful transitions and images, that all seems to be hiding behind som greater truth, some veil, like looking into a dream, or into far-away memories which i believe the movie truly is. Just memories that clutch so close to a persons soul and emotions, so it's like going through the prettiest of poems. Such magic! It's about reflecting upon those memories, and the life that you left behind, the person that you met, and most importent, the people you saw something in, the people you reflected yourself in, the mirrors of youself and everyone else, looking at yourself and seeing how everything is the same, everything is like looking through this giant mirror, everything is tied together. What a masterpiece!

gavin6942 A dying man in his forties remembers his past. His childhood, his mother, the war, personal moments and things that tell of the recent history of all the Russian nation.Tarkovsky is probably the greatest Soviet / Russian director of his generation. Indeed, who else even comes close? If you were to list the top Russian directors of all time, Tarkovsky would be right near the top, perhaps only beaten by Eisenstein.He has a science fiction and fantasy way to look at the world, and even in more realistic films like this one, that sense of wonder comes through. Few other directors would "paint" their scenes like this, out of order and in different colors (or lack of color). He is someone who ought to be studied, and surely is.

dkwootton Ignat turns on the television and steps back, the camera panning behind his head placing the spectator into his mind (or into his consciousness). We watch what he watches – a doctor helping a teenager overcome a speech impediment. The two shots that precede the pre-title sequence are a curious opener for a film, but could not be a more appropriate way to begin The Mirror (1974), Tarkovskii's introspective study into memory. The televised examination of the stutterer is one of those rare, inexplicable moments that stand out when reflecting on one's childhood: we cannot control the distinctive images or brief flashes that stick, but for some odd reason they do.The Mirror is a tremendously personal film, with Tarkovskii's father Arsenii reading his own poetry, and (I assume) many of the past sequences and dreams lifted from the filmmaker's own life (we even see a poster for the director's second endeavor Andrei Roublev (1966) during a pan in the phone conversation). Tarkovskii turns the abstract, the metaphysical and the spiritual into something concrete in his images. The film is loosely structured playing as if a recollection of memories with each scene a strong impression from the past. The rich greens, the moment with the fence breaking and doctor laughing, the gust of wind as he walks away and the burning barn all seem as though Tarkovskii is reconstructing vivid incidents from his youth and transcribing them to celluloid. Tarkovskii often employs his trademark meditative long takes; each shot an investigation into motion as the filmmaker dwells on subtle textures such as the dripping of water, the river stream and the strength of the wind. The title The Mirror evokes a reflection, possibly the way we reflect upon and dream about our own past experiences. Our nostalgic and imaginative visions from the past maintain a realness that "objective" history lacks. In the final moments of our life, all we have are our learned experiences and flashes from our memories as Tarkovskii gives us a bird leaping from the hands of the dying man cutting to the sun setting in the open field, the childhood house and the mother laying in the grass.

vladislavmanoylo The Mirror is a poetry of images and motion. It's the kind of film that probably needs to be seen several times to understand, but its enjoyable even the first time thanks to the imagery and atmosphere it can create. Instead of a traditional plot, this movie speaks through symbols, again much like a poem. Rather than following any linear story, the scenes are taken from various places in time featuring a handful of characters, and other scenes taken from documentaries spliced in between.One of the most interesting elements is the camera. It moves like a ghost throughout the movie- gently gliding across extended single shot scenes, and sliding across characters and their reflections. Interestingly it maintains this effect when its shown from the first person, and other characters are addressing the character whose point of view were looking from. This is why I said the camera is like a ghost, because most of the movie is filmed like this it's as if this character behind the camera is always there, which is even made possible because the camera is capable of walking across dream-like sequences as readily as real ones.One of the earliest scenes in the movie is of this time, and summarizes why this movie is so engrossing. After the scene of a house burning down in the rain, there is one of a woman washing her hair, which is ordinary on the surface but a very eerie atmosphere is created because of her very slow movements and the hair covering her face. The tension is brought up dramatically from the surroundings: walls scarred by flames but dripping with moisture. A connection is made to the burned down house from earlier, and later scenes in the movie take place in buildings with similar walls. Links such as these between disparate scenes of the movie create this impression of a poem, where all these separate elements where put in place to create a single meaning, but what that is is largely up to the audience to discover.There are many more examples throughout, but that is just a glimpse of the atmosphere that makes this movie so interesting to watch even the first time.