Ok, that was clearly an incredibly thematically dense film which I’m really going to have to ruminate on to get to the underlying subtext. The main trio seemed to represent three different sides of humanity: science, art, and spiritualism. The film seemed to be Tarkovsky’s expression of how he believes the different sides of humanity interact with each other. Ok, interesting ideas, this is only surface level and it probably goes a lot deeper than that.
Now let’s talk about the presentation. The cinematography was great, switching from sepia to color kept things unique and interesting, but every single shot overstayed its welcome. I feel like there could be a cut of this movie that could easily be half and hour shorter and wouldn’t lose anything of value. The performances were amazing. I can’t reflect much on the dialogue or poetry because I can’t speak Russian but I’m sure it was all great. Here’s my biggest gripe. It wasn’t just that there was bad pacing, the pacing didn’t exist. Nothing happens in the entire movie. Someone would have to sit me down and explain to me why that isn’t a valid critique of this two and a half hour long film. This is the same problem I had with “2001: a Space Odyssey” (and I’d go as far to say this is the Russian version of that film for some pretty obvious reasons).
That last scene with the girl was like a Marvel after credits scene, like what was even up with that? Was it just to show that the Zone was actually a real thing? “You may be doubting the Zone even exists because you just watched 2.5 hours of some dudes wandering in a magical forest without anything magical happening. Well look at this girl with some psychic powers! See, the magic exists after all!” I was sooo not a fan of that aspect, or at the very least didn’t understand it.
This review may seem pretty scathing, but I didn’t hate the whole movie. I just felt strongly about some aspects of it. I’ll echo the common sentiment that this is a must-watch for movie nerds, for the cinematography if nothing else. But yeah it was one of the most boring movies I’ve ever seen in my life.
Ok, that was clearly an incredibly thematically dense film which I’m really going to have to ruminate on to get to the underlying subtext. The main trio seemed to represent three different sides of humanity: science, art, and spiritualism. The film seemed to be Tarkovsky’s expression of how he believes the different sides of humanity interact with each other. Ok, interesting ideas, this is only surface level and it probably goes a lot deeper than that.
Now let’s talk about the presentation. The cinematography was great, switching from sepia to color kept things unique and interesting, but every single shot overstayed its welcome. I feel like there could be a cut of this movie that could easily be half and hour shorter and wouldn’t lose anything of value. The performances were amazing. I can’t reflect much on the dialogue or poetry because I can’t speak Russian but I’m sure it was all great. Here’s my biggest gripe. It wasn’t just that there was bad pacing, the pacing didn’t exist. Nothing happens in the entire movie. Someone would have to sit me down and explain to me why that isn’t a valid critique of this two and a half hour long film. This is the same problem I had with “2001: a Space Odyssey” (and I’d go as far to say this is the Russian version of that film for some pretty obvious reasons).
That last scene with the girl was like a Marvel after credits scene, like what was even up with that? Was it just to show that the Zone was actually a real thing? “You may be doubting the Zone even exists because you just watched 2.5 hours of some dudes wandering in a magical forest without anything magical happening. Well look at this girl with some psychic powers! See, the magic exists after all!” I was sooo not a fan of that aspect, or at the very least didn’t understand it.
This review may seem pretty scathing, but I didn’t hate the whole movie. I just felt strongly about some aspects of it. I’ll echo the common sentiment that this is a must-watch for movie nerds, for the cinematography if nothing else. But yeah it was one of the most boring movies I’ve ever seen in my life.
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