fiction / 1966 / Soviet Union / bw / 174 min.
This historical epic about icon painter Andrei Rublev is a characterization of 15th century Russia – a politically and culturally charged, dogmatic and ascetic time that inspired Rublev’s personal, religious and artistic conflicts as well as his painful doubts. This testimony of spiritual power and streams of indestructible creative energy is marked by a narrative character of the story that extends episodically: each of the loosely connected seven “chapters” is constructed as a drama. The outward randomness of plot devices coincides with the film’s conspicuously cyclical structure. Using minute historical material, Tarkovsky created an evocation of period mentality, feelings and actions of man. He enriched the mosaic of episodes with timeless ideas and reflections, and above all his faith in the humanist ideal, according to which human thought and vitality cannot be quenched by any external oppression or subjection.
Director: Andrei Tarkovsky
Screenplay: Andrei Mikhalkov-Konchalovsky, Andrei Tarkovsky
Photography: Vadim Yusov
Music: Vyacheslav Ovchinnikov
Cast: Anatoliy Solonitsyn, Ivan Lapikov, Nikolay Sergeev, Nikolay Burlyaev, Nikolay Grinko, Irma Raush, Yuriy Nazarov