Andrei Rublev

Much like the subject of a giant fresco of an orthodox church, which takes a sacred iconography and expand it with a simple but meaningful art style, Andrei Rublev serves as a starting point for Tarkovsky, to explore an epoque, but even more abstractly, the struggles of an artist under tyranny. Separated in chapters, which like stadiums of a 'via crucis' isolate and dramatize moments in the life of XV Century icon painter, it is far from the concept of "biopic" that criticism has imposed over films inspired by real events or people. Rublev is a historical figure rooted in a legendary imaginarium, with few actual known facts about his life.

Eventually, the storyline takes detours, the size of the film expands: the documented historical context, the siege of the city of Vladimir, the invasion of the tatars and the allegiances between the tyrants that rule over the russian people traslate Rublev's own preoccupations as a devout artist, who is concerned about being forced to create images that have the purpose of instilling fear, that questions the strumentalisation of religion by the authorities of his time. He is a character almost out of his time, whose folly is derived from understanding the insanity of his society, whose religious devotion has a rather rationalistic form, who's not afraid of witnessing paganic rituals.

The spirituality of Rublev is of an interesting making: a devout christian, he does seem rather unorthodox at times, keen not as much to doubt but to question dogmatisms that surround him. This being the first Tarkovsky film that tackles spirituality with a certain freedom, it does still have a rationalist subtone, in which ghosts appear entirely tangible, the mystical remains invisible, and the wonder sparks from the interior.

The uncensored cut that has been released in 2023 at the Venice Film Festival is practically identical, if not for the addition of a series of dialogues in which Rublev's criticism towards the tyrants is more explicit and employing a language that makes no doubt about the political content being targeted to Tarkivsky's own time and his own leadership under the Soviet Union. When Rublev talks to the ghost of Theophanes, he asks, "when will this all end?" - a rhethorical question on the millenary power structures that sees forms of authoritarian rule over the russian people and that remains actual today.

Andrei Rublev is the greatest of Tarkovsky's films, in terms of scale. Never again will he be allowed to so elegantly portray massive groups of people, gigantic events, such as the elaborate bell casting chapter, an apotheosis of crawling bodies, of camera movements, of suspense and of pure epicity.

And once the grandeur is complete, the epilogue. On the notes of Vyacheslav Ovchinnikov's ominous score, a colour sequence featuring extremely lengthy shots, zoomed in to a point that no actual shape is discernible at first, follow the details and the lines of some of Rublev's surviving icons. A conclusion that is not only meant to provoke a sense of awe around the works of the real-life artist, but, through them, to construct a sense of abstract, of spirituality. The epilogue has an effect of spiritual cleansing, unlocks a meditative consciousness that transcends the film, and lingers on for long after.

RATING: 5/5

Original title: Andrei Rublev

Directed by: Andrei Tarkovsky

Country: USSR

Year: 1966

Length: 183 min. (original cut); 191 min (director's cut - uncensored cut); 206 min. (workprint 'The Passion of Andrei' version - not considered the definitive cut by Tarkovsky)

Premiere: Venice Film Festival 1962

Availability: Youtube (official Mosfilm channel), The Criterion Channel (US only)