Nostalgia

Tarkovsky Films 2025 7/7 “There isn’t 'realism' on the one hand, and on the other hand 'dreams.' We spend a third of our life asleep: what is there that is more real than dreams?” -Andrei Tarkovsky With this film completed, I have now watched the entire collection of Tarkovsky feature length films. Nostalgia, or sometimes spelled Nostalghia, is Tarkovsky’s first film since his banishment from Russia, set snd produced in Italy instead. The film follows our two characters, a Russian poet and his interpreter, researching an Italian composer. People often refer to Mirror as Tarkovsky’s most personal film, which I can agree with. However I feel Nostalgia is his most human. Tarkovsky often refrains from close up shots, and typically shoots wide, scene shots where our characters interact. This film relies greatly on face shots and close ups to show the emotions of our protagonist. The plot of this film is also his most human. Looking contextually at Tarkovsky’s life at this point, we see he’s just been forced out of his homeland. He realized he has cancer and knows he’s a dying man. He’s existing in a time of personal turmoil and reflecting on his past life in Russia as he himself is stuck in Italy. I find this quite relatable to us all. Often we find ourselves stuck somewhere, and then we look back on the place we came from with both longing and contempt for the past - two dueling emotions ultimately resulting in the feeling that we call nostalgia. This was a film I needed greatly to watch, and I found it the most profound in my own life. Instead of living vicariously through l writer/director Tarkovsky as I typically do with his films, I was able to deeper relate to the emotion presented in this film. Visually I think it’s his best film as well. He uses shadows more than any of his other films, along with shifting lights for his reflective sequences. The symbolism is great too, with the German Shepherd following him around as a symbol of his past. Quite a simple yet unique plot. Final Ranking: 1. Mirror 2.Nostalghia 3. The Sacrifice 4. Stalker 5. Andrei Rublev 6. Solaris 7. Ivan’s childhood Look maybe I’m just in the feels about this film. I’ll revisit it at some point and see if it holds its position. However it is quite odd that Stalker is at 4/7, since that implies his most famous film is bad. Rather all his films are so good, that it scales in such a way.