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Nostalghia

Italy, Soviet Union

1983

125 Min
Color, Black and White
1.66:1
Italian, Russian
  • Currently 4.4/5 Stars.
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DIR Andrei Tarkovsky

EXEC Manolo Bolognini, Renzo Rossellini

PROD Franco Casati, Daniel Toscan du Plantier

SCR Tonino Guerra, Andrei Tarkovsky

DP Giuseppe Lanci

CAST Erland Josephson, Oleg Yankovsky, Delia Boccardo, Domiziana Giordano, Patrizia Terreno, Laura De Marchi, Milena Vukotic, Raffaele Di Mario, Rate Furlan, Livio Galassi, Elena Magoia, Piero Vida

ED Erminia Marani, Amedeo Salfa

PROD DES Andrea Crisanti

SOUND Remo Ugolinelli

Cannes (In Competition): Best Director, FIPRESCI Prize, Prize of the Ecumenical Jury, New York

Synopsis

A haunting, enigmatic film directed by Andrei Tarkovsky, his first made outside of the Soviet Union. It is a portrait of a misanthropic poet, Gorchakov (Oleg Yankovsky), an expatriate in Italy who is researching the life of an exiled Russian composer who committed suicide. Gorchakov finds himself crippled by a melancholy nostalgia for his Russian homeland and memories of his wife and children.

At St. Catherine’s pool – a sacred site near a Tuscan village – Gorchakov encounters local mystic and pariah, Domenico (Erland Josephson), who offers Gorchakov a glimpse of redemption through his belief that if one can travel across the pool with a lit candle, one can save all of humanity. Nostalghia won the Grand Prix de Creation and the International Critics Prize at the 1984 Cannes Film Festival.

Director

Original

Andrei Tarkovsky

Considered one of Russia’s most distinguished contemporary directors, the late Andrei Tarkovsky is known for highly personalized and poetic films. The son of poet Arseni Tarkovsky, he studied Arabic and first worked as a geologist before attending the State Film School in Moscow under Mikhail Romm. While there he made a pair of short films, “There Will Be No Leave Today” (1959) and the acclaimed Katok i Skripka/The Steamroller and the Violin (his diploma film). Following graduation in 1960, Tarkovsky went to work for Mosfilm and made his feature-film directorial debut in 1962 with Ivanovo Detstvo/Ivan’s Childhood. The film earned him top honors at that year’s Venice Film Festival. His sophomore film, Andrei Rublev, is Tarkovsky’s most renowned work. Ostensibly a portrait of a 15th century Russian painter, the film is actually a metaphorical drama mirroring the plight of Russian artists. Some have expanded the film’s parable to reflect the dramatic effects of war and chaos upon humanity… read more

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Displaying 4 of 34 wall posts.
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Colton Bose

9Jan12

One of Tarko's best. The last 30 minutes in particular were completely mesmerizing.

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Marcelo Pereira

17Nov11

«Just gonna stand there and watch me burn», much? I feel bad for quoting that song, but anyways, the film was quite a disappointment. The script is way too floating and ambiguous, and I didn't find it as brilliant as Tarkovsky's other works. Nevertheless, that final shot is just sublime, I can't get it off my mind (and I don't want to). Not bad at all, but compared to other films in Tarkovsky's filmography...

Phoebe Pua

30Oct11

the submerged church

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domina vegrandis

27Oct11

Everyone always speaks of the candle sequence being so monumental, but in truth, it's the imagery and accompanying song of the closing scene that remains with me.

Colton Bose likes this

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