Click here to copy URL

The Mirror

Zerkalo

1975

Andrei Tarkovsky

Margarita Terekhova, Philip Yankovsky, Ignat Daniltsev, Oleg Yankovskiy ...

7.8

6,706

Drama Tarkovsky mixes flash-backs, historical footage and original poetry to illustrate the reminiscences of a man about his childhood during World War II, adolescence, and a painful divorce in his family. The story interweaves reflections about Russian history and society. It is based on Tarkovsky’s childhood in the Soviet Union before, during and after World War II.

	Author	Review
United States	James F. Clarity The New York Times	""Mirror, a new film by Andrei Tarkovsky, the controversial and unorthodox Soviet director, is delighting, puzzling, disaping serious Muscovite movie enthusiasts. (...) It could increase [Tarkovsky's] audience and his prestige in the West, if the Soviet authorities permit the film to be shown abroad."	POS
United States	Anthony Lane The New Yorker	"The smallest details (a stammering child, the wrinkle in the turned page of a book) stick like burrs, and we are left to wonder if any director has delved with more modesty and honesty into the heartbreak of the past."	POS
United Kingdom	Chris Peachment Time Out	"Tarkovsky goes for the great white whale of politicised art -- no less than a history of his country in this century seen in terms of the personal -- and succeeds. (...) Unique its form, unique its vision."	POS
United States	Mark Chalon Smith Los Angeles Times	"'The Mirror' can be difficult for audiences raised on the mainstream movies of Hollywood. (...) No tidy resolutions, no easy steps from here to there. But what The Mirror lacks in simple logic it makes up for in satisfying emotions."	POS
France	Alain Remond Télérama	"The Soviet critics judged the film obscure, incomprehensible and too long for the masses... It is a picture of air, water and fire, a feverish meditation of an artist at the turning point of his life, difficult, certainly, but rich, sensual and beautiful."	POS
United Kingdom	Peter Bradshaw The Guardian	"It is a startling piece of film-making, floating free of the conventional demands of period and narrative (...) It's simply inspired."	POS
Ireland	Donald Clarke Irish Times	"'Mirror' is much copied (...) Eschewing time and plot for flotsam and psyche is much harder than Tarkovsky makes it look (…) Rating: ★★★★★ (out of 5)"	POS
United Kingdom	David Parkinson Empire	"Poetry in motion (…) Rating: ★★★★ (out of 5)"	POS

Return to movie

We encourage you to check the reviews' original sources. Intellectual property rights of these reviews belong to their authors and/or the correspondent media from which they have been extracted. If you'd like to help us to add more reviews to your favorite movies, just send us a message.