The Sacrifice, 1986.
Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky.
Starring Erland Josephson, Susan Fleetwood, Allan Edwall, Guðrún S. Gísladóttir, Sven Wollter, Valérie Mairesse, Filippa Franzen, Tommy Kjellqvist.
SYNOPSIS:
Andrei Tarkovsky’s final movie, the hauntingly meditative The Sacrifice, arrives on 4K Ultra HD courtesy of Kino Lorber. This is my first experience with the film, but I believe it has been issued on 4K media before. At any rate, you’ll find a nice batch of extras on the accompanying Blu-ray platter. Highly recommended.
This probably wasn’t the best movie to watch, especially for the first time, given my current mood (my job search has become a slog and my marriage is failing), but I had put in the request for this one, so duty calls. I had not seen an Andrei Tarkovsky film before, so I wanted to finally see one of them.
The Sacrifice, which was Tarkovsky’s final film before he succumbed to cancer, also piqued my interest because a friend told me about it way back in the 1990s. His description of a movie where people are dealing with interpersonal matters while World War III unfolds stuck somewhere in the back of my brain.
Those people are the family of Alexander (Erland Josephson), a retired actor who is now a writer and who lives in a remote area of Sweden with his wife Adelaide (Susan Fleetwood), stepdaughter Marta (Filippa Franzén), and a young son dubbed “Little Man” (Tommy Kjellqvist).
The story opens on Alexander and Little Man, who is currently mute because of a throat operation, planting a tree during the former’s birthday. Alexander is experiencing an existential crisis, however, and his state of mind further unravels when the roar of a fighter jet interrupts the family and their friends.
They turn on the TV and radio to learn that World War III has broken out. Adelaide breaks down in despair, and Alexander contemplates suicide before renouncing his previously-expressed lack of faith in God and asks for a bargain with that higher power to undo what has happened.
If you’ve watched any films by Ingmar Bergman, you can probably guess the tone and pace of The Sacrifice. It runs 142 minutes and the plot is fairly simple, but it’s the kind of movie that asks you to contemplate life, the universe, and everything, to quote someone whose work was the 180-degree opposite of this story.
Like I said, I probably wasn’t in the best frame of mind for this one, but I strive to get my reviews published in a timely manner, and I certainly can’t fault this movie for my mood. I’ll revisit The Sacrifice when I’m in a better place someday, but for now, I can appreciate what Tarkovsky was attempting to accomplish with this movie, which is more of a meditation than a traditional story, per se.
This 4K Ultra HD release of the film presents it in the best possible way on home video. If you’re a fan, I assume you’ll be happy with how this one looks. Kino Lorber chose to only have the movie, and a commentary track, on the 4K disc, with another copy of the movie and the rest of the extras on the accompanying Blu-ray.
There aren’t a lot of bonus features found here, but what’s included is very rich and in-depth, starting with the commentary by Layla Alexander-Garret, who was Tarkovsky’s on-set translator during the making of the film. A moderator pops in a few times to prompt her, but in general, this is a very free-flowing discussion of the film from someone who was there.
The film’s editor, Michał Leszczyłowski, shows up in a 32-minute interview about his work with Tarkovsky, and he also directed the excellent 101-minute Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky, a documentary about the movie that was released in 1988.
A trailer for The Sacrifice, as well as the trailer for Tarkovsky’s 1983 film Nostalghia, round out this release.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★
Brad Cook
