Mirror

Mirror was a film that seemingly played with the concepts of memories and time. Tarkovsky used the opening scene of this movie to signal his intention for the movie. The scrambled television foreshadowed that Tarkovsky intended to meddle with the flow of time. Apparently, nearly the entire movie consisted of memories (or dreams) within different memories and dreams. Yet, in Sculpting in Time Tarkovsky claimed that the most important element of a film was rhythm. Mirror definitely had a rhythm; the flow of the film was not sporadic. Perhaps, this movie’s mastery of rhythm was able to overcome a weak storyline.

There was definitely a story to this movie. However, the jumble of dreams made the story hard to follow. The main character seemingly had dreams or was recalling memories of when he was a boy and his mother also apparently did the same (although not to as great of an extent). Evidently, the main character required some sort of medical attention when he was a boy which caused a strain on his mother because her husband either died or ran off on her. The main character blamed himself for the hard life he had created for his mother. Perhaps, the most bizarre happenstance of this movie was that in the main character’s memories or dreams he had a sibling and yet in memories or dreams when he only appeared to be slightly older the sibling was out of the picture.

Mirror’s format made this movie intellectually stimulating to watch. Arguably the most unconventional part of this movie was when the main character simply recalled a dream he had as a child or recalled a childhood dream while he was dreaming. In a frightening scene, he watched his mother move around unnaturally after she had just finished washing her hair before the house he was living in fell apart. This was a perfect example of the brilliance of Tarkovsky in this film. The dreams of a little boy would not logically make much sense or be very realistic. One great feature of Mirror was how the memories or dreams involving the little boy were much more fantastic.

An example of this occurrence was when the little boy was looking at a picture of Karl Marx and images of the communist revolutions in China and Spain flooded his mind. Perhaps, this was Tarkovsky’s way of subtlety placing a little propaganda in his movie to please the Soviet government. However, this would seemingly be unlikely considering that Tarkovsky was an advocate for the creative license of artists. The main character’s memories – or dreams – of himself as a child looking at the picture book made perfect sense and fit the character of the film. Everyone had eccentric thoughts flood through their minds when they were children.

Thus, later in the film the main character had memories or dreams that were much more sophisticated and mature. He no longer had any thoughts that were highly imaginative. This was especially made apparent by the intellectual conversations he had with his wife. They were usually always taking about who should have custody of their son and about the character flaws present in one another. A child’s memories would not have been like this. However, these memories were seemingly on the level of what an adult’s would have been.