Criterion Collection: Andrei Rublev | Blu-ray Review
Tarkovsky imagines seven episodes meant to represent the trajectory of Andrei Rublev (Anatoly Solonitsyn). A monk traveling with two other brother monks, Rublev struggles to reconcile his religious and creative integrities, which are elements symbolizing a divided culture of Christianity and Paganism in 1400s Russia. Eventually, Rublev is transformed by the suffering of a world he cannot assist, a Christ-like martyr for his art.
With only seven films (like the chapters prescribed to Rublev), Tarkovsky left his mark as one of the most significant begetters of the cinematic medium. His struggle with the Russian censors to get Andrei Rublev released perhaps explains why Tarkovsky went into the direction of sci-fi with his next film, the 1972 masterpiece Solaris (it took three years for Rublev to snag a premiere at the 1969 Cannes Film Festival, where it played out of competition and took home the FIPRESCI prize, much to the dismay of the dictatorship back home). The significance of Andrey Konchalovsky as co-writer also positions Rublev as a major turning point for Tarkovsky—his next collaboration with Konchalovsky was the failed 1979 Peter the Great project The First Day, considered a lost film thanks to the interference of the censors, inspiring Tarkovsky to make his last two films in Europe.
Andrei Rublev marks the debut of actor Anatoly Solonitsyn, discovered by Tarkovsky in his search for the lead, and who would appear in the next four of the director’s Soviet films, his health eventually negatively affected by the shoot of Stalker, dying at the age of 47 in 1982. After Rublev, he worked with many of Russia’s most esteemed auteurs (including Larisa Shepitko, Elem Klimov, and Aleksey German), and yet it’s his work here which is perhaps his most significant. An artist with principles (early on he wishes to refuse to paint a scene of The Last Judgment), Rublev errs on the losing side of corrupting ideology, unable to successfully straddle the divide of aestheticism and religious zealotry of the Orthodox Church.
Tarkovsky’s ruefulness is revealed in such painstaking precisions to document Rublev’s fall from grace, a man whose works would eventually be embraced as revered icons of the church. Rublev takes a back seat to his own story, aged and haggard as a mute in the third act (recalling a similar visual odyssey for the main character in Klimov’s Come and See), sandwiched between the fates of two other artistically inclined laborers. Tarkovsky opens with a peasant who takes flight from a church tower in a rudimentary hot air balloon and then closes with a chapter on a 14-year-old tasked with casting a bell (who lies to authorities, professing his deceased father has taught him the tricks of the trade), which must be presented to visiting dignitaries as a success or the boy will be killed. The boy’s blind faith causes Rublev to break his vow of silence, but Tarkovsky’s portrait of an artist intensely focuses on a culture’s insistence on using artistry as a maniacal tool of craftsmanship—a duty to create for the state which is all consuming, and eventually depleted in its competition with religious and political dogmas.
Disc Review:
Criterion presents Andrei Rublev in Tarkovsky’s preferred 183-minute cut but also offers the version suppressed by Soviet authorities (The Passion According to Andrei). Presented in 2.35:1 with uncompressed monaural soundtrack, this new high-definition restoration is a must have, a fantastic new restoration from the early days of Criterion’s catalogue. Several notable extra features are included, such as Tarkovsky’s 1961 student thesis film.
The Steamroller and the Violin:
Tarkovsky’s first publicly released film was this 1961 forty-five-minute featurette, his thesis project from the VGIK school in Moscow.
The Three Andreis:
Dina Musatova, who attended the VGIK film school alongside Tarkovsky, filmed this eighteen-minute 1966 documentary about the making of Andrei Rublev.
On the Set of Andrei Rublev:
A brief five-minute collection of silent footage of Tarkovsky on set of Andrei Rublev is included.
Tarkovsky’s Andrei Rublev – A Journey:
A new half-hour documentary from filmmakers Louise Milne and Sean Martin features interviews with actor Nikolai Burlyaev, cinematographer Vadim Yusov, Tarkovsky’s personal assistant Olga Surkova, film critic Dmitri Salynsky, and Tarkovsky scholar Vida T. Johnson.
Robert Bird:
Film scholar Robert Bird sits for this thirty-seven-minute interview conducted by Criterion in 2018, discussing the complex relationship between Tarkovsky’s film and its subject.
Vlada Petric:
From the 1998 Criterion release of the film, this scene selected commentary from film scholar Vlada Petric analyzes the formal characteristics of Andrei Rublev.
Inventing Andrei Rublev:
Filmmaker Daniel Raim composed this 2018 video essay from the director’s own interviews and essays concerning the creative process and unique aesthetic philosophy applied to the making of Andrei Rublev.
Final Thoughts:
Preceding Frantisek Vlacil’s classic rendering of Christianity’s rise against Paganism in 1967’s Marketa Lazarova, Tarkovsky’s Andrei Rublev is a portrait of an artist against a similar backdrop of discontent, presented by an auteur in his most tangible parameters.
Film Review: ★★★★/☆☆☆☆☆
Disc Review:★★★★/☆☆☆☆☆
