The Sacrifice
Fear of death, the battle against time, religion and disecting characters through memories are themes that Tarkovsky put in this work, resembling the well known Bergman topics.
This film is the last by its director, who was very ill while shooting this, and he knew what could happened because of his own mortality, he tried to make one last work, one last message before passing away.
It starts with a man speaking and teaching his son valuable lessons of life, and the stories that are our way to communicate with other generations, and to see the world through their eyes. He is interrupted by the postman who talks about how his life feels like a waiting for something real, and because of that he doesn't feel like he is making those changes, he rides his bicycle around the protagonist as if it was himself asking these same existential questions in his mind, agreeing with that feel.
Alexander, the protagonist is a very conflicted man, he cries in sorrow that maybe he didn't act to change the order of things, the sistematic discipline that was needed to "plant a tree", he wasn't "watering the tree of his own life", and he didn't change the world because of his lack of discipline.
Other characters keep reminding him the things he did in the past, but he is dubidative as if he was loosing his own self because of acting and pretending to be someone else. He needed his ego, his own identity.
It's set in Sweden during a new war in the 80s, probably one that could end it all. Tarkovsky knew well enough the context of the Cold War, it was a time were many people were afraid of the nuclear holocaust and that could happen any time.
Through religious imagery, the film tell us about the sacrifice, the motif of saving the others, of losing an important element of the self to gift it as a way of love. The protagonist has to make a decision in his talk with God, he is decided to lose everything to save his friends and family, he asks to God for mercy as he's willing to give away his terrenal belongings.
It also contains some presence of pagan references such as the "witch", who for me is a metaphor of the death apprehension theory, making a representation of the pagan cult in a moment of despair of the characters. The same theory occurs while the protagonist deals with the silence of God and the salvation prayers, begging for help also as a clear representation of the fear of death. In my opinion, the protagonist tried to exhaust the resources of faith, whatever they were, in order to achieve this salvation, and give meaning to the life that he had sought so much, an inner fullfillment. So while asking for God and the witch for salvation he has to left something behind, he has to make an act of love.
This pact, this sacrifice, tell us about a strong love, fear and ascetism that Tarkovsky could probably think in many ways through his own experience. He is not showing us just the war and destruction, and the sacrifice as a nuclear armistice, he's showing us the human relationships and the value doing something significative for the others, and that's the ultimate goal for the sacrifice, this ascetism and the ultimate gift. As an alegory for biblical stories to test the faith such as Abraham, Job, Noah or Jesus, the character seek for the path of God.
These topics of religion, faith, sorrow and time are commonly used by existentialist directors to show a character afraid of death or near that experience, trying to find a meaning. And this film, being Tarkovsky's last tell us more about this final manifesto.