© 2021 James Clark
In the films we find necessary, there’s seldom, if ever, a chance to set in relief a smiling baby boy. Mirror (1975), by Andrei Tarkovsky, does not include such an event as a supercilious whimsy. In fact, that presence is extremely well proffered. Our film concerns, as always for Tarkovsky, and for Bergman before and after, the way to smile with conviction. The baby has an instinct to thrive in that moment. How does it fare, going forward? Forces rule; and we all play versions of the same game.
Near the beginning of this saga there is a woman, in the Russian style, having many names (here, Maria, Masha, Marussia, and [particularly] Natalia), lounging, as is her wont, on a rustic fence at her appealing rural home. She’s having a smoke and gazing upon the panoramic meadow many miles distant. She notices a man approaching a long way away. The man’s voice-over remarks, “The road from the station lies through Ignatyovo… turning off near a farmstead where we spent our summers before the War, and then to Tomshino through a dark oak wood.” (Someone who knows where he’s going?) The woman is not happy seeing a stranger. Birds sing, but smoking is more her style. He’s carrying a black satchel. As he arrives she tells him, “You should have turned at the bush.” He asks, rather forwardly, “Why are you sitting here?”/ “I live here.”/ “Where? On the fence?” This annoys her. He counters with, “Strange, I took everything but the key.” His tone implies that it was she who missed seizing the key. He asks, “Why are you nervous? Give me your hand. I’m a doctor. Don’t count! I’m counting.” (A ripple of the Surreal, and the Theatre of the Absurd. Standbys of Bergman and Tarkovsky.) “Must I call my husband?”/ “You’ve no husband. You’ve no wedding ring.” (Swift panning shots.) The smoke from her cigarette carries an almost volcanic thrust. Her tightly wound hair sends a message of pedantry. He’s given the cigarette he wants. “Why are you so sad?” he inquires. He sits on the fence along with her, and it promptly collapses. He laughs. She doesn’t. He sees a flash of the uncanny. She sees nothing out of the ordinary. (But does this clash introduce two sides of the same mirror?) Marching off, a bit, she asks, “Why are you so happy?” His mystique plunges, when saying, “It’s nice to fall with a pretty woman.” He rallies with, “Look at those roots, these bushes… Did you ever wonder about plants?” She is cleaning off her clothes. He perseveres, “The trees, this beechnut.” (The Major, in the film, Ivan’s Childhood [1962], where a woman is stalked and insulted in the woods, has been put in place in contrast to the interplay here. A singularity? An upshot of structure which could be seen as a mirror, a very specific and complex process of force.) “They’re in no hurry,” he maintains. “While we rush around and speak platitudes… It’s because we don’t trust our inner natures. There’s all this doubt, haste, lack of time to stop and think.” It seems there’s something very wrong with that commotion. She begins to say, “Do you have…” But he rudely interrupts. “Have no fear. I’m a doctor, you know…” When she’s able to say something, she fires off, rather surprisingly, “What about ‘Ward No. 6?’” (That being the writer, Chekhov’s, whose concern here was strictly about injustice, not obscure, enigmatic possibilities. Natalia’s job, as a proofreader would be rooted in pedantry, almost as far as one gets from the stranger’s passion.) “It’s all Chekov’s invention,” is the careless way he dismisses the humanitarian. “Come to Tomshino. We have jolly times there.” (This being an invitation to the pagans in force, in Tarkovsky’s film, Andrei Rublev [1966].) Her refusing the invitation, he gives her short shrift to deal with the cut ear (the deaf finesse) he scratched on falling from the fence. What maintains is the ripple of the grasses in the wind. He stops and looks back. A fierce gale comes and goes. Nothing seems to adhere. But the voice-over of the pagan, bound for idyll, one way or the other, tells himself a pretty story. “You were lighter and bolder than the wing of a bird… flying down the stairs two at a time… pure giddiness, leading me throw moist lilac…” Cut to a small boy. “To your domain beyond the looking glass. The Alice in Wonderland making everything bright.” (How a problematic becomes a farce.) (more…)
Click on names for archives
Writers/Founders
Wonders in the Dark 