Nostalghia
Nov 15 - Nov 20, 2013
(Andrei Tarkovsky, 1983, Russia, 35mm, 120 min)
New 35mm print!
A metaphysical exploration of spiritual isolation and Russian identity, Tarkovsky’s (Solaris, Stalker) penultimate film Nostalghia follows Russian expatriate and misanthropic poet Andrei (Oleg Yankovsky, The Mirror) as he travels to Italy to conduct research on an 18th-century composer. In the course of his study, he is overcome by melancholy and a longing for his home country—a sentiment reflective of the exiled Tarkovsky’s own struggle with displacement (this being his first film made outside of the USSR; the film’s Italian title translates as “homesickness”).
At its Cannes debut, Nostalghia won Tarkovsky the prize for Best Director as well as the Grand Prix du Cinéma de Création, an award he shared with Robert Bresson, but the Soviet government prevented the film from winning the Palme d’Or. With music by Debussy, Wagner, Verdi, and Beethoven, Tarkovsky’s “relentlessly poetic” (Vincent Canby, The New York Times) late masterwork also features stunning black-and-white flashback sequences.