Waiting for II

Also for this month it is difficult to imagine which films will be in theaters at the time of the release of this issue and then a virtue is made of necessity and I dwell on a film that deserves to be rediscovered and can be easily rediscovered since it is visible at no cost. on Youtube.

A work, Andrei Rublev by Andrei Tarkovskij, shot in 1966 and presented in 1969 at the Cannes Film Festival that gave him international fame to the point of being considered today one of the cornerstones of twentieth century cinema.

The film reinterprets the history of 15th-century Russia through the exploits of the most famous Russian painter Andrei Rublev, author of the most famous icons in the history of art. A work divided into eight chapters which, in addition to telling the life of a mythical character for all Russians, also wants to reflect on the meaning of art in the face of the bloody politics of men as heinous as that of the struggles in Russia between rival princes and the invasions of the Tartars .

A reflection that, however, unfortunately has topical features even today and even more so when the film was released, which at home was opposed by the communist regime which prevented its screening in theaters for a long time.

Rublev has his teacher in Theophanes the Greek and with him entertains a long discussion, during their long journeys on foot, on the functions of art in the face of the evils of the world: the teacher does not believe in beauty but limits himself to reproducing it and accusing it with cynicism the people of ignorance and inability to act with righteousness, the student vice versa has a more understanding vision towards people and is aware of their sufferings.

An example of this speech is one of the most famous scenes in the film (easily traceable online) when Rublev, in a dreamlike vision, imagines himself the victim of a crucifixion in a poor snow-covered village of peasants and his voice-over comments on these images so crude understanding the work of the innocent people and crushed by the strength of the ruling classes.

A sequence of rare beauty that is close to Pasolini's visions of the Gospel according to Matthew where the crudeness and drama of black and white enhance the depth of the gestures and thoughts of the characters involved. How much distance from the iconography of the most classic altarpieces by Pontormo and Rosso Fiorentino taken up in many books and commented on by Pasolini in the short film La ricotta treated in the last issue.

Andrei Rublev continues the story and the life of the great painter between fascinating images and equally precious moments such as the one at the end dedicated to the efforts of some craftsmen engaged in the construction of a bell. A film that is not easy but capable of making the viewer feel sensations of rare beauty, that feeling which, in the words of a character by the Russian writer Dostoevsky, "will save the world".


Davide Bracco
NP may 2020