Mirror - 1975

 One of the original thought processes behind the film blog here was because I have a pretty bad memory.  When I was in high school I wanted to watch all of the Godzilla films, as well as Zatoichi.  I would watch one of these, say, Zatoichi's Vengeance, and then like a week later or whatever I would be like, which ones have I seen again?  The titles (case in point in this example) might have nothing to do with the plot, so I would end up forgetting and end up having to rewatch or waste a rental or watch out of order.

Mirror, another example of a title which you really can't say anything about, is possibly a Tarkovsky movie I had never seen before?  That or I completely did not remember it.  Either one is completely possible.

Random thoughts of reflection after just having watched Mirror:

1. What did this script look like?  I wonder what Tarkovsky had to give investors and such in order to secure funding.  If one thinks that likely the poems infused into all of his work were likely not in the script, were they just pages describing shots or the minimalistic movements of characters?

2. What is a tone poem, when was it popularized, and do we have at least a partial amount of our awareness of them because of Tarkovsky?  I feel like these movies are in a large part essentially tone poems, enigmatic, atmospheric, interpretive, and esoteric. 

3. Does visual beauty make us relate to minimalism more?  Large expanses of nature, minute nuances in music or painting - do we look deeper into these because of their seeming slightness, does that connect with us....  Or really, to answer WE DO, and then the real question is WHY?

Mirror is perhaps Tarkovsky's most nonlinear and most esoteric work.  A chance meeting in the beginning of the film between a travelling doctor and Maria sparks a largely internal journey of a dying poet to recount his childhood, his relationships with his parents, and his turmoil.  That's basically the plot.

I also want to mention the editing.  Perhaps it is only the strict contrast between Mirror and some of Tarkovsky's other work, but there are several moments where something changes in the last millisecond of a shot, and exactly then is when it edits.  I believe this is extremely powerful in the film.  I think it says something very interesting about memory, about feeling, about the notion of "unfinished business" or death or life, or all of it.  Oddly enough, this feels a lot more like a film about death then The Sacrifice, but I'm also going to rewatch that and get back to you on that.

But like I said, the "plot" here is really nothing.  What this is, instead, is a visual and auditory journey through symbolism, emotion, artistry, nostalgia, memory, and near worship of the power of a moment.  This movie is basically meditation, it is the goal and the experience of meditation, at least for me.  It's self-exposing, complete interpretive minimalism is exactly what I believe the goal of such a task is.

Mirror thoroughly confused film critics, confused me, and sat in relative obscurity until being placed in the Sight and Sound top 100 and being hailed as a work of artistic genius years later.  The meaning behind and the examination of it is solely up to the viewer, and what can I say besides, genuinely, everyone will get something different out of this.  And for that, Mirror gets...