Nostalghia
Nostalghia
(1983)
(1983)
First of all, let me express my deep regret that the film was projected from VCD, and it always was putting me off... it never helps if the image is bad, for no fault of the cinematographer (the cinematography is among the best of Tarkovsky's films), and it forces you to concentrate on the threads on the canvas. It was needless bother.
Now, let us forget it quickly, because we shall be discussing what is arguably the most accessible of Tarkovsky's existential works: Nostalghia. And, it must be said, the film and its theme seemed so simple, so familiar (the reviewer had lived with these aches throughout his life for perhaps the best years in his life), that except for the slowly sweeping panorama of life, nature, and isolation, that it seemed insipid. It was all too familiar. The film will not sink in from just one viewing, it will take probably a few more before I can corroborate my own theories, and the truth shatters in like a well kept secret. Nostalghia is one of those rare Tarkovsky films (apart from Andrei Rubyov, of course) in which people die, and things really happen.
The three main characters - Andrei Gortchakov, a Russian poet (Oleg Yankovsky); the pretty Italian interpreter, Eugenia (Domiziana Giordano); and a local eccentric, Domenico (Erland Josephson) - have one thing in common: they are immensely sensitive to the little pools of nothingness that sometimes swamp their day today life. For at least one of them (Domenico), it has become a major preoccupation in life, a severe hindrance, and at times, a posturing (I couldn't help wondering at the lengths to which he could legitimately stretch the limits of play-acting). All three are hypersensitive to one's own preoccupation, and each in a unique way: the poet continually relates his condition with his ideas and projected ideals; he even finds the time to prove a few of his theories regarding human psyche. The escort (no other way to describe Eugenia in the 21st century) is an intelligent bimbette who is somehow under the impression that it's she calling the shots, apparently die to the fact that she's the interpreter to the touchy Russian poet. She is flummoxed by the apparent disinterest displayed by her client to her obvious charms; she is selfish and has every right to be. [Tarkovsky deals out poetic justice to her in the end]. She, however, rises to spiritual heights (if at all) in the end, when she runs away from a more-or-less secured future (which will also be the end of her freedom) to witness the immolation of the eccentric. And thirdly, the eccentric, Domenico, who is pictured as a raw, brooding rustic who is somehow left to his own devices in an abandoned, sprawling concrete building without a roof. In his identity as the madman, as the rustic fool, Domenico is incapable of meaningful action; however, due of the same reasons, he can also renounce everything, and show the world how little it all means, and how important it is to remain civilized, to listen to other folks' grief, and to love one's fellow beings. In a controlled, but self-destructing rush of faith and anguish (one could literally see that sacrificing life was not easy for Domenico either; but not for the expected reasons: he fumbles in his pocket to find a matchbox). While everyone else finds lip service expedient, Domenico finds meaning in the one thing that has meaning: life. What does it mean to the world if there is one less (and this applies to all human beings in the long run).
Much as I felt that Domenico had conveniently adopted the identity of the madman, it introduces us to the presence of poverty: it stands starkly in the middle of our conscience as something that redeems us from our most crippling vice: conceit. for Domenico, self mortification and poverty are a way out of conceit. Poverty is shown as a sublime way of circumventing sin. Poverty is also a way to repay for past sins. Poverty and humiliation are the ultimate price to pay for one's sins. To choose both wilfully is atonement. Or so Domenico would believe until his confidence is shattered by his meeting with the poet.
Two of the three main characters are somewhat shaky in their consistency: Eugenia is confused, and Domenico is unsure of what he is doing, weighed down by guilt. (It is up to the viewer to decide if there's any justification to his horrible act of preserving his family by solitary confinement, or, if such an act should be done, if he really was a normal person). The poet is consistent, he is searching, and it seems he finds an ultimate refuge in nostalgia. His dream about his wife sleeping next to him, pregnant, raises interesting questions. Why did he come and visit the Madonna of the Baby? Why does he not go inside the cathedral and spare Eugenia the blushes (she has, after all, unwillingly make an appearance before the cleric and pose silly questions and reveal herself in an idiotic fashion)? Why does he tell he straightaway that his folks are all dead? (All the nostalgic shots are in black and white, and finally when he dies he joins the nostalgia people).
An often overlooked aspect of the film is the fact that all three, including the poet, are weak, preferring to mull over things, turn things over and over, and when they act, they do so unwillingly, with not the slightest of commitment. This is the farthest extent of fragmentation that the modern man's soul is subjected to: no principles, no faith, no ethics, no rules, nothing to live for, nothing to die for, insipidity everywhere, everything a chore. The tree protagonists reach this point through varied paths. Eugenia probably reached there following the whims of her heart fuelled by impossible aspirations of an ideal love; indulgence is a poor substitute for genuine and responsible experience, a truth which she probably realizes later on, and shows submission as a valid expedient of retribution. She represents the rootless youth (probably the hippie like Italian youth) who somehow find something 'missing'. She is probably easier to portray than to understand, because she is unlike the women Tarkovsky has presented in every other movie. She's much farther from his concept of woman (as personified by his remarkable mother) than all the women in his movies. Her loathing for motherhood is probably the first remarkable revelation about Eugenia, and it suffices. Eugenia finds it difficult to live with mediocrity, and, being forced to suffer mediocrity, she hardly does anything authentic herself, and is thus completely faithless, finally giving in to a primitive and indolent form of superstition.
The significant element in the film, in my opinion, is not the full-blown picture of man and his isolation: it is Tarkovsky himself, not as the director, but as a significant human being, a man in exile, an émigré. Tarkovsky usually manages to separate himself from his films as much as possible, but in this film he is directly talking to us. His nostalgia (especially in the irrelevant speech to the girl child from the flooded room in a dream sequence, where the poet seems to run out of encomiums for Russia), his self imposed exile, explicit reference to the Russian poet who loved a slave girl and risked becoming a slave if he returned to Russia (echoing the state of affairs under Soviet communism), the blind march of the "healthy people", madman having to warn the healthy people that they are wrong... and finally, in the absolute travesty of Schiller's Ode to Joy (in Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, which is derided as 'overly sentimental' in comparison with chinese music, which, to me, sounded like the wail of a badly tuned violin) played out from a cheap gramophone. (It is easy to see how Tarkovsky would have preferred Mozart over Beethoven, simply by the 'hardness' of the personalities—Mozart was sentimental, while Beethoven was stern and sought order throughout his life while perpetually living on the brink of madness).
Tarkovsky has presented two stunning characters in this film: Eugenia and Gortchakov. She presents her case simply and forcefully. She is completely true to her self as revealed in the dialogues. She is easily won over by charm, and, though she says things to the opposite, it is the undeniable charm of the boring but intellectually challenging poet that draws her to him, not the thrill of a hot session in the bed. She finds him too difficult, however, when she has no clue as to the 'other things he has on his mind.' True to what she says, she comes to loath him like she loathed the hairy worm in her dream (a bad fib quickly made up), and she makes good use of her Italian shoes when she has the occasion. This is the only point when she treads on the poet's little toe, when he finds her ranting, intended to tarnish his public image as a quiet intellectual, too hard to allow. The decline of the poet starts from this point onwards, when he suddenly finds himself lonely and isolated. This would later culminate in the huge monologue detailing his nostalgia, where he pledges his life to his homeland.
Apart from the 'straight' characters, Domenico presents something of a puzzle from the outset. He is capable of intelligent thought, but at times his posturing seems just what it is. I was not sympathetic to this character from the first (I assumed from the outset that he is a completely normal human being, maybe a bit too devout, trying to cover up his past mistake with the convenient tag of madman - a tag consciously placed on him by knowing village folk for his emotional well being). But when we are made aware of the fearfully close sounds of raindrops flooding the house, breaking at the sides of empty wine bottles, we suddenly glimpse the meaning of self imposed exile, and poverty and ostracism as a choice. Then we suddenly realize how the madman has inherited such a big building for his home: floodwaters. A short rain is enough to flood his apartment which has no roof. He is open to the elements, open to the voice of God. And God, he feels, stands over his bed as a turgid plastic canopy.
The poet, it seems, is struck down by his nostalgia from the very first shot; when the pretty interpreter invites him to his room, he is still thinking about his daughter and her pet dog. Images of his wife come to haunt him, and his loneliness naturally points to the reality: if he returns to his homeland he will don the garb of a slave. He will be writing for the government. Arsenyi Tarkovsky's poems are directly recited to evoke feelings of nostalgia for the Russian homeland. (I am not sure how far this exercise has been fruitful).
Some simple things can be gathered from Eugene: she revolts because she has, for the first time, been escorting a man who has shown no interest in her physical charms. This breaks her ego, and, notwithstanding her speech (that she would fill her void by 'finding the right man') she is in fact choosing her head over her heart by refusing to get tied down with this brilliant, honest intellectual who remains true to his roots (I don't think any truly romantic woman would find this quality boring). She chooses to get spliced to a boring individual and live the life of a boring housewife (even singing his praise for no particular reason but out of necessity). As she departs from Gortchakov, she probably knows she's on her way down, bidding good-bye to all things free. When she finally calls up the poet, to say goodbye (probably knowing this would be their last telephonic conversation), both know that the end is near. For Eugene, it the end of her life as a self respecting and free woman (freedom being an issue she is concerned with all the time). For Gortchakov, it is the end of his life, for he knows his heart condition would forbid a prolonged life. He is fed up with life, having seen it all.
The final scene featuring a doddering Andrei trying to reach the other shore of the sauna with a lighted candle, seemingly to light his own memorial, is often comic in its evocation of human conceit. The poet is extremely conscious of any onlooker for fear of looking ridiculous, and he covers and nurtures his pride as he would a candle in the wind. When he finally makes it to the other side and places the candle at the feet of the Madonna, he gives up the ghost, as well as his last breath. A few hundred miles away, at roughly the same time, Domenico had given up his life in a publicized immolation, to the blaring music of Beethoven before a vulgar crowd waiting to be shocked, wanting to be entertained. Andrei finally belongs to the land of his nostalgia, with the people of his nostalgia, and his favourite home is now sheltered by the towering pillars of the cathedral. Andrei finds faith in the final gasps of his life, his salvation.
Now, let us forget it quickly, because we shall be discussing what is arguably the most accessible of Tarkovsky's existential works: Nostalghia. And, it must be said, the film and its theme seemed so simple, so familiar (the reviewer had lived with these aches throughout his life for perhaps the best years in his life), that except for the slowly sweeping panorama of life, nature, and isolation, that it seemed insipid. It was all too familiar. The film will not sink in from just one viewing, it will take probably a few more before I can corroborate my own theories, and the truth shatters in like a well kept secret. Nostalghia is one of those rare Tarkovsky films (apart from Andrei Rubyov, of course) in which people die, and things really happen.
The three main characters - Andrei Gortchakov, a Russian poet (Oleg Yankovsky); the pretty Italian interpreter, Eugenia (Domiziana Giordano); and a local eccentric, Domenico (Erland Josephson) - have one thing in common: they are immensely sensitive to the little pools of nothingness that sometimes swamp their day today life. For at least one of them (Domenico), it has become a major preoccupation in life, a severe hindrance, and at times, a posturing (I couldn't help wondering at the lengths to which he could legitimately stretch the limits of play-acting). All three are hypersensitive to one's own preoccupation, and each in a unique way: the poet continually relates his condition with his ideas and projected ideals; he even finds the time to prove a few of his theories regarding human psyche. The escort (no other way to describe Eugenia in the 21st century) is an intelligent bimbette who is somehow under the impression that it's she calling the shots, apparently die to the fact that she's the interpreter to the touchy Russian poet. She is flummoxed by the apparent disinterest displayed by her client to her obvious charms; she is selfish and has every right to be. [Tarkovsky deals out poetic justice to her in the end]. She, however, rises to spiritual heights (if at all) in the end, when she runs away from a more-or-less secured future (which will also be the end of her freedom) to witness the immolation of the eccentric. And thirdly, the eccentric, Domenico, who is pictured as a raw, brooding rustic who is somehow left to his own devices in an abandoned, sprawling concrete building without a roof. In his identity as the madman, as the rustic fool, Domenico is incapable of meaningful action; however, due of the same reasons, he can also renounce everything, and show the world how little it all means, and how important it is to remain civilized, to listen to other folks' grief, and to love one's fellow beings. In a controlled, but self-destructing rush of faith and anguish (one could literally see that sacrificing life was not easy for Domenico either; but not for the expected reasons: he fumbles in his pocket to find a matchbox). While everyone else finds lip service expedient, Domenico finds meaning in the one thing that has meaning: life. What does it mean to the world if there is one less (and this applies to all human beings in the long run).
Much as I felt that Domenico had conveniently adopted the identity of the madman, it introduces us to the presence of poverty: it stands starkly in the middle of our conscience as something that redeems us from our most crippling vice: conceit. for Domenico, self mortification and poverty are a way out of conceit. Poverty is shown as a sublime way of circumventing sin. Poverty is also a way to repay for past sins. Poverty and humiliation are the ultimate price to pay for one's sins. To choose both wilfully is atonement. Or so Domenico would believe until his confidence is shattered by his meeting with the poet.
Two of the three main characters are somewhat shaky in their consistency: Eugenia is confused, and Domenico is unsure of what he is doing, weighed down by guilt. (It is up to the viewer to decide if there's any justification to his horrible act of preserving his family by solitary confinement, or, if such an act should be done, if he really was a normal person). The poet is consistent, he is searching, and it seems he finds an ultimate refuge in nostalgia. His dream about his wife sleeping next to him, pregnant, raises interesting questions. Why did he come and visit the Madonna of the Baby? Why does he not go inside the cathedral and spare Eugenia the blushes (she has, after all, unwillingly make an appearance before the cleric and pose silly questions and reveal herself in an idiotic fashion)? Why does he tell he straightaway that his folks are all dead? (All the nostalgic shots are in black and white, and finally when he dies he joins the nostalgia people).
An often overlooked aspect of the film is the fact that all three, including the poet, are weak, preferring to mull over things, turn things over and over, and when they act, they do so unwillingly, with not the slightest of commitment. This is the farthest extent of fragmentation that the modern man's soul is subjected to: no principles, no faith, no ethics, no rules, nothing to live for, nothing to die for, insipidity everywhere, everything a chore. The tree protagonists reach this point through varied paths. Eugenia probably reached there following the whims of her heart fuelled by impossible aspirations of an ideal love; indulgence is a poor substitute for genuine and responsible experience, a truth which she probably realizes later on, and shows submission as a valid expedient of retribution. She represents the rootless youth (probably the hippie like Italian youth) who somehow find something 'missing'. She is probably easier to portray than to understand, because she is unlike the women Tarkovsky has presented in every other movie. She's much farther from his concept of woman (as personified by his remarkable mother) than all the women in his movies. Her loathing for motherhood is probably the first remarkable revelation about Eugenia, and it suffices. Eugenia finds it difficult to live with mediocrity, and, being forced to suffer mediocrity, she hardly does anything authentic herself, and is thus completely faithless, finally giving in to a primitive and indolent form of superstition.
The significant element in the film, in my opinion, is not the full-blown picture of man and his isolation: it is Tarkovsky himself, not as the director, but as a significant human being, a man in exile, an émigré. Tarkovsky usually manages to separate himself from his films as much as possible, but in this film he is directly talking to us. His nostalgia (especially in the irrelevant speech to the girl child from the flooded room in a dream sequence, where the poet seems to run out of encomiums for Russia), his self imposed exile, explicit reference to the Russian poet who loved a slave girl and risked becoming a slave if he returned to Russia (echoing the state of affairs under Soviet communism), the blind march of the "healthy people", madman having to warn the healthy people that they are wrong... and finally, in the absolute travesty of Schiller's Ode to Joy (in Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, which is derided as 'overly sentimental' in comparison with chinese music, which, to me, sounded like the wail of a badly tuned violin) played out from a cheap gramophone. (It is easy to see how Tarkovsky would have preferred Mozart over Beethoven, simply by the 'hardness' of the personalities—Mozart was sentimental, while Beethoven was stern and sought order throughout his life while perpetually living on the brink of madness).
Tarkovsky has presented two stunning characters in this film: Eugenia and Gortchakov. She presents her case simply and forcefully. She is completely true to her self as revealed in the dialogues. She is easily won over by charm, and, though she says things to the opposite, it is the undeniable charm of the boring but intellectually challenging poet that draws her to him, not the thrill of a hot session in the bed. She finds him too difficult, however, when she has no clue as to the 'other things he has on his mind.' True to what she says, she comes to loath him like she loathed the hairy worm in her dream (a bad fib quickly made up), and she makes good use of her Italian shoes when she has the occasion. This is the only point when she treads on the poet's little toe, when he finds her ranting, intended to tarnish his public image as a quiet intellectual, too hard to allow. The decline of the poet starts from this point onwards, when he suddenly finds himself lonely and isolated. This would later culminate in the huge monologue detailing his nostalgia, where he pledges his life to his homeland.
Apart from the 'straight' characters, Domenico presents something of a puzzle from the outset. He is capable of intelligent thought, but at times his posturing seems just what it is. I was not sympathetic to this character from the first (I assumed from the outset that he is a completely normal human being, maybe a bit too devout, trying to cover up his past mistake with the convenient tag of madman - a tag consciously placed on him by knowing village folk for his emotional well being). But when we are made aware of the fearfully close sounds of raindrops flooding the house, breaking at the sides of empty wine bottles, we suddenly glimpse the meaning of self imposed exile, and poverty and ostracism as a choice. Then we suddenly realize how the madman has inherited such a big building for his home: floodwaters. A short rain is enough to flood his apartment which has no roof. He is open to the elements, open to the voice of God. And God, he feels, stands over his bed as a turgid plastic canopy.
The poet, it seems, is struck down by his nostalgia from the very first shot; when the pretty interpreter invites him to his room, he is still thinking about his daughter and her pet dog. Images of his wife come to haunt him, and his loneliness naturally points to the reality: if he returns to his homeland he will don the garb of a slave. He will be writing for the government. Arsenyi Tarkovsky's poems are directly recited to evoke feelings of nostalgia for the Russian homeland. (I am not sure how far this exercise has been fruitful).
Some simple things can be gathered from Eugene: she revolts because she has, for the first time, been escorting a man who has shown no interest in her physical charms. This breaks her ego, and, notwithstanding her speech (that she would fill her void by 'finding the right man') she is in fact choosing her head over her heart by refusing to get tied down with this brilliant, honest intellectual who remains true to his roots (I don't think any truly romantic woman would find this quality boring). She chooses to get spliced to a boring individual and live the life of a boring housewife (even singing his praise for no particular reason but out of necessity). As she departs from Gortchakov, she probably knows she's on her way down, bidding good-bye to all things free. When she finally calls up the poet, to say goodbye (probably knowing this would be their last telephonic conversation), both know that the end is near. For Eugene, it the end of her life as a self respecting and free woman (freedom being an issue she is concerned with all the time). For Gortchakov, it is the end of his life, for he knows his heart condition would forbid a prolonged life. He is fed up with life, having seen it all.
The final scene featuring a doddering Andrei trying to reach the other shore of the sauna with a lighted candle, seemingly to light his own memorial, is often comic in its evocation of human conceit. The poet is extremely conscious of any onlooker for fear of looking ridiculous, and he covers and nurtures his pride as he would a candle in the wind. When he finally makes it to the other side and places the candle at the feet of the Madonna, he gives up the ghost, as well as his last breath. A few hundred miles away, at roughly the same time, Domenico had given up his life in a publicized immolation, to the blaring music of Beethoven before a vulgar crowd waiting to be shocked, wanting to be entertained. Andrei finally belongs to the land of his nostalgia, with the people of his nostalgia, and his favourite home is now sheltered by the towering pillars of the cathedral. Andrei finds faith in the final gasps of his life, his salvation.
Footnote:
As I have said before: the film will require a few viewings before it gives up its more intimate secrets. As with all Tarkovsky movies, the film registers on many different planes, and it is up to the viewer to make the conscious choice of moving up the rungs. The curious fact is that, this moving film can also be validly viewed as a joke. On the other plane, it can be viewed as frightfully gloomy, which it isn't, or as exceedingly heroic, which also it isn't. However, the train of thoughts by which domenico hits upon the idea of self immolation as a means to draw the attention of the world at large to their big bad unhealthy ways is remarkably consistent with his childlike reasoning. More on that in a later essay... For the time being, I am overwhelmed by the personal references in the movie. I also remind the reader that Anatoly Solonitsyn was dead by 1983, or else we could have seen a different person as Gortchakov.
This blog could be significantly improved, and it cries out for a few stills from the film. I will try to add it some time in the future. As a matter of fact I'm just back in my heavy work style after a long hibernation, and this is just a web-publish of an earlier effort doing the rounds privately... and please post a few comments to further improve my post.
As I have said before: the film will require a few viewings before it gives up its more intimate secrets. As with all Tarkovsky movies, the film registers on many different planes, and it is up to the viewer to make the conscious choice of moving up the rungs. The curious fact is that, this moving film can also be validly viewed as a joke. On the other plane, it can be viewed as frightfully gloomy, which it isn't, or as exceedingly heroic, which also it isn't. However, the train of thoughts by which domenico hits upon the idea of self immolation as a means to draw the attention of the world at large to their big bad unhealthy ways is remarkably consistent with his childlike reasoning. More on that in a later essay... For the time being, I am overwhelmed by the personal references in the movie. I also remind the reader that Anatoly Solonitsyn was dead by 1983, or else we could have seen a different person as Gortchakov.
This blog could be significantly improved, and it cries out for a few stills from the film. I will try to add it some time in the future. As a matter of fact I'm just back in my heavy work style after a long hibernation, and this is just a web-publish of an earlier effort doing the rounds privately... and please post a few comments to further improve my post.
posted by Zeinab @ 12:33 PM
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