Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky
Written by Aleksandr Misharin & Andrei Tarkovsky
Starring Margarita Terekhova and Oleg Yankovskiy
Runtime: 1 hour 47 minutes
New 2K restoration will be available from Lincoln Center’s Virtual Cinema beginning January 29th 

by Ian Hrabe, Staff Writer

It’s hard to think of a business worse-suited for a pandemic than a movie theater. You need only think about that movie theater scene from Outbreak–where a guy coughs and you follow the germs into the bodies of everyone else in the theater–to become a VOD devotee for the foreseeable future. Where multiplex corporations like AMC are floundering, some smaller indie theaters have gotten into the virtual cinema game where you can digitally rent a film through your local arthouse cinema purveyor and thus support that local theater. New York City’s Lincoln Center has one of the more robust virtual cinema’s on the market, and their new 2K restoration of Andrei Tarkovsky’s 1975 film The Mirror is a wonderful stopgap until Criterion gets around to releasing this gorgeous new restoration on Blu-Ray.

The Mirror is one of those films I have been putting off for a while. Tarkovsky requires a certain mood, and while it has been on my to watch list since finally getting around to Solaris last year, it is very easy to bump SUPER SERIOUS RUSSIAN ART FILM down the list in favor of less existential fare (especially in these pandemic times we are living in). I say Tarkovsky requires a mood, but the easiest way to get into that mood is to put on a Tarkovsky film. His way of seeing the world is rapturous, and his work is totally engrossing.

The Mirror is frequently cited as his most personal film and it’s hard to argue with that assessment. The yarn Tarkovsky spins is effectively elements of his upbringing and life before, during, and after World War II told non-linearly in a dreamlike stream-of-consciousness manner. You probably know the scene with the barn burning down, which is one of the most stunning sequences in all of cinema, but The Mirror’s greatest achievement is making you feel emotionally connected to a narrative that at times feels totally incomprehensible. Because what Tarkovsky is getting at is less about a story and more about a feeling, which sounds like some new agey bullshit but where many films are poetic, The Mirror is a poem.

Tarkovsky’s shots are, as you would expect, absolutely breathtaking, but it is lead actress Margarita Terekhova--who plays both the protagonist’s mother and wife--who serves as this film’s emotional anchor. Through all of the parsing out what is a dream and what is reality, Terekhova and her beautifully expressive face are an ever present reminder that there is no point in parsing. I keep thinking of that old quote “writing about music is like dancing about architecture” and feeling that it applies to Tarkovsky particularly well if you swap music for art cinema. It is difficult to capture the essence of his films with words because his films are so indescribably beautiful. I can write a thousand words about that barn fire sequence, or the frames where Margarita Terekhova is depicted hovering above a bed, but the best I can do is encourage you to give this film a look and see for yourself.