Russian reality at the SLTTI

Film lovers will get a rare chance to see some of the artistically rich films directed by one of Russia's leading filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky in Colombo this week.

Colombo Independents Cinema Forum (CICF) holds 'Andrei Tarkovsky' Film Festival and workshop at Sri Lanka Television Training Institute (SLTTI) at Independence Square, Colombo 7 from November 27 and December 2.

Andrei Tarkovsky is almost certainly the most famous Russian filmmaker since Eisenstein. His visionary approach to cinematic time and space, as well as his commitment to cinema as poetry, mark his oeuvre as one of the defining moments in the development of the modern art film.

Although he never tackled politics directly, the metaphysical preoccupations of films such as Andrei Rublev (1966), Mirror (1974) and Stalker (1979) provoked ongoing hostility from the Soviet authorities. Like many other artistes in the Soviet Union, his career was marked by constant struggle swith the authorities to realise his vision. Although this meant he completed only seven features in his 27 years as a director, each one is strikingly uncompromising in its thematic ambition and formal boldness.

All screening will start at 4.30 pm except Saturday when starting time will be at 2.30 pm.

Screening on Monday, November 27 Ivan's Childhood (1962) is Tarkovsky's and it is an adaptation of a war story by Vladimir Bogomolov. At its centre is an orphaned 12-year-old scout whose lost childhood is repeatedly invoked in a dazzling series of dream scenes. The rest of the film avoids action movie heroics in favour of an intense study of the tensions assailing a group of soldiers during the free time between missions.

Andrei Rublev on Nov. 28 Tuesday displays an enormous advance in Tarkovsky's technique. Although loosely based on the life of the famous medieval iconic painter Andrei Rublev, this episodic series of meditations on art's survival and relevance in the face of harrowing historical circumstances is interpreted by many as an allegory of the plight of the artiste under the Soviet regime.

Directed in 1972 Solaris will be screened on November 29. Often compared to Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), a film Tarkovsky judged as too cold and inhuman, Solaris tells of a scientist (Donatas Banionis) sent to investigate mysterious events on a space station orbiting the planet Solaris. Theories have been put forward that Solaris is made of conscious matter, functioning like a giant brain. Upon arriving, Banionis discovers the planet has been trying to make contact with the station's inhabitants by reaching into their subconscious and creating living replicas of whatever it finds locked in there.

Like Tarkovsky's other science fiction film, Stalker (adapted from Boris and Arkady Strugatsky's novel Roadside Picnic), Solaris deals with self-confrontation. In Solaris, a tenuous communication is established with the planet and, having faced up to his demons, the hero attains a degree of peace with himself. Stalker is far more pessimistic, the attempt at self-confrontation botched and finally avoided will be screened on Thursday Nov 30.

In a gracefully sustained mood piece, Nostalgia a Russian poet played by Oleg Yankovsky arrives at an Italian spa accompanied by his interpreter (Domiziana Giordano). He is in Italy to research a book, but in spite of the extraordinary visual beauty of the spa, he is afflicted with homesickness. The film will be screened on Friday Dec 1.
Tarkovsky's last film 'The Sacrifice' will be screened on Saturday, Dec. 2 at 2:30 pm.

By the time Tarkovsky started work on The Sacrifice, he knew he was seriously ill with cancer. A Swedish production, The Sacrifice is an allegory of self-sacrifice in which Erland Josephson gives up everything he holds dear to avert a nuclear catastrophe. The use of Josephson and cinematographer Sven Nykvist indicate the influence of Ingmar Bergman, one of the few directors Tarkovsky wholeheartedly admired. Although a step down from the near-perfection of Nostalgia, The Sacrifice is nevertheless a fitting conclusion to a distinguished but difficult career.