I can't say for certain how The Mirror had the impact it did, but it just worked like a kind of pure cinematic experience, minus the usual traditional narrative. There is something of a flow to the proceedings, but it's in pieces, fragments, the memory of (as late in the film we learn) a dying man. One person said in these comments on IMDb that there's something about the Mirror that deals with time, profoundly, and I think that's one of the keys to the picture. Among the few that are read, there is a poem narrated over documentary footage of soldiers walking along, and the poem talks of death as being only temporary, of someone dying at seven or seventy, but that there's a constant reality that continues even after one dies. There's something poignant being said there, almost out of reach, but plain as day. What can one do with a lifetime? There's childhood, adolescence, adulthood, marriage, divorce, and eventually the end.
So The Mirror is, at the end of it all, a reflection (no pun intended) on life spent in a society, in this case Russia which the film very much is rooted in, the history of it, and how one spends with those he or she loves or tries to care for, not to mention work and (occassionally) play. We see scenes of a woman named Natalya, who is also the 'mother' figure (most likely meant to symbolize Tarkovsky's own maternal figure), and in crucial scenes like her at her job as a proofreader, or socializing with a Spanish bullfighter, or when she breaks up with her husband to marry a writer ("is he Dostoyevsky?" he asks sarcastically), and even in dreams where she washes her hair, in slow motion, and walls and the ceiling crumbling around her. But after a while, the two blend together, with maybe only some little differences in how we view the women, played by a very great and deeply emotional Margarita Terekhova, who in viewed through the prism of The Mirror is left to the audience to decide when is which and how.
It should be a pretentious effort, and once in a while it does feel that way (a scene where the boy and his mother go to a neighbor's house, and the boy sits alone looking at the title object reminded me of "Mirror, Father, mirror" from Ghost World). But rarely from a European filmmaker have I been rattled with the challenge Tarkovsky presents. For one like myself who loves great poetry that enriches the mind, loves great technique with a visionary who knows few bounds with the camera careening and moving fearlessly in some scenes (particularly around the locations outside the house of the family in the country-side), loves things in style like lighting and perfect mix of B&W and color and little editing tricks that jar the senses like being witness to a fire-bomb thrown at the conventions of the usual in storytelling, and basically like a challenge to ones senses, The Mirror is fantastic. Few films combine themes of war, of social decimation, of familial crises, of the memories of things and objects (i.e. art book), and mortality like the Mirror, so even when it seems to distance the viewer with its approach to revealing it's not something to discard very easily on the whole.
I'd be careful who I'd recommend it to- it's the kind of film that would draw enough comments going either way (love or totally hate or confused by) as to be close to polarizing- but for those who want to take a chance, it's one of the director's best, a unique triumph of personal film-making. To see it on the big screen, I might add, is a significant plus.
So The Mirror is, at the end of it all, a reflection (no pun intended) on life spent in a society, in this case Russia which the film very much is rooted in, the history of it, and how one spends with those he or she loves or tries to care for, not to mention work and (occassionally) play. We see scenes of a woman named Natalya, who is also the 'mother' figure (most likely meant to symbolize Tarkovsky's own maternal figure), and in crucial scenes like her at her job as a proofreader, or socializing with a Spanish bullfighter, or when she breaks up with her husband to marry a writer ("is he Dostoyevsky?" he asks sarcastically), and even in dreams where she washes her hair, in slow motion, and walls and the ceiling crumbling around her. But after a while, the two blend together, with maybe only some little differences in how we view the women, played by a very great and deeply emotional Margarita Terekhova, who in viewed through the prism of The Mirror is left to the audience to decide when is which and how.
It should be a pretentious effort, and once in a while it does feel that way (a scene where the boy and his mother go to a neighbor's house, and the boy sits alone looking at the title object reminded me of "Mirror, Father, mirror" from Ghost World). But rarely from a European filmmaker have I been rattled with the challenge Tarkovsky presents. For one like myself who loves great poetry that enriches the mind, loves great technique with a visionary who knows few bounds with the camera careening and moving fearlessly in some scenes (particularly around the locations outside the house of the family in the country-side), loves things in style like lighting and perfect mix of B&W and color and little editing tricks that jar the senses like being witness to a fire-bomb thrown at the conventions of the usual in storytelling, and basically like a challenge to ones senses, The Mirror is fantastic. Few films combine themes of war, of social decimation, of familial crises, of the memories of things and objects (i.e. art book), and mortality like the Mirror, so even when it seems to distance the viewer with its approach to revealing it's not something to discard very easily on the whole.
I'd be careful who I'd recommend it to- it's the kind of film that would draw enough comments going either way (love or totally hate or confused by) as to be close to polarizing- but for those who want to take a chance, it's one of the director's best, a unique triumph of personal film-making. To see it on the big screen, I might add, is a significant plus.