Due
in large part to utilizing much of Bergman’s crew including but not limited to
legendary cinematographer Sven Nykvist whose images look created by God,
production designer Anna Asp who won an Oscar for Bergman’s Fanny and
Alexander and the central casting of Bergman regular Erland Josephson, the
film is a paean to Bergman while also allowing room for Tarkovsky to make debatably
his most artistically profound cinematic expression of his oeuvre.
Alexander (Josephson) is a former actor turned journalist
and intellectual critic living in his secluded ornate seaside house with his
actress wife Adelaide (Susan Fleetwood), stepdaughter Marta (Filippa Franzen)
and young son temporarily deprived of the ability to speak due to a throat
operation. Alexander has grown
increasingly atheistic and contemptuous of his fellow modern man, going on
extended rants about the state and folly of humankind.
Soon however World War III followed by
nuclear holocaust breaks out and their tranquil existence in isolation is
shaken to its very foundations with Alexander suddenly shedding his agnosticism
and offering to renounce his life and family for the survival of homo
sapiens. Only a great sacrifice back to
the Heavens and Earth, in Alexander’s heart and mind, will avert the destruction.
By now, based on the poster
and trailers, you’re probably aware of a scene involving a house burning to the
ground in one of the longest takes ever shot and edited by the director. Reportedly shot on one camera with the first
take jamming the film and forcing the crew to rebuild and reburn down the
house, the sequence compounded with the watery island setting and the
staggering performances by the cast represents a perfect cinematic union
between chilly mise-en-scene and gut-wrenching emotional power. It’s a staggering scene which in and out of
context is like bearing witness to a natural disaster in real time fraught with
emotion and heart.
A career summation, a plea to humanity, a reckoning with his
own fear of death and a passion project made while he was dying of lunch cancer,
Tarkovsky was screened a final cut of the film on his deathbed in a Parisian
hospital and was unable to attend the Cannes Film Festival premiere where, as
with Solaris, the film won the prestigious Grand Prix award.
A look inward confronting mortality and faith,
The Sacrifice may be the most overtly religious work from a director
already drenched knee deep in themes of peace and spirituality. Presented with an aching sensory beauty
reminiscent of his friend Akira Kurosawa’s work and a heartfelt begging on the
knees wish for an end to war, The Sacrifice as a whole experience from
sight to sound is some of the most affecting pure cinema to ever come out of a
movie camera.
--Andrew Kotwicki
