Andrei Rublev

Until the film was finished, the first scene didn't make much sense. But when it did, it hit me good. A man attempts transcendence. He wants to rise above the suffering and limitations of the earth. He flies, for one brief moment. But then he crashes. For me, this is exactly what searching for faith feels like right now. We long for transcendence in many ways; Some go running around naked in the forest, some go cast a massive bell even though they do not know the secret, pretending they do. Rublev finds out about the ugliness of this world and starts denying the beauty of it. But when he recognizes himself in Boriska, a young boy pretending to know what he's doing for the sake of beauty, he figures art is not made from certainty but from faith. Is creating beauty still meaningful in a world filled with suffering? This film says that beauty may be one of the only things that makes suffering bearable.