Andrei Rublev


1966 drama

Rating: 19/20

Plot: A biopic about some Russian painter nobody has ever heard of.

As with all Tarkovsky movies, I have no idea how he filmed some of these scenes. I can't imagine the animals really enjoying a lot of it. A horse falls down the stairs. A cow's on fire. Dogs are fighting over what probably really is horse meat. This guy wasn't a director. He was a fucking magician.

There are individual moments in this movie that are so profound that I had to hit pause and reflect, something that made this already three-hour-and-forty-minute movie that much longer. As with his other films, there's plenty of time to contemplate anyway. Shots are stretched impossibly, leaving lots of space for the audience to dig around in them.

There are so many stand-out sequences in the 7 chapters (not counting a prologue and epilogue, the latter showing off [in color] details in Rublev's paintings). The making of a bell in the final chapter appears to be Fitzcarraldo-esque. I think Tarkovsky really made his actors and the extras make a fucking bell!

I apologize for the expletives.

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