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| The Mirror / Loveless |
Comparing a modern-day Russian director that makes moody contemplative films to Andrei Tarkovsky feels a little cheap. It’s the equivalent of comparing anything “weird” to a David Lynch movie and calling it “Lynchian” (something I wish folks would stop doing).
But the relationship between the films of Andrei Tarkovsky and Andrey Zvyagintsev is a fascinating one because it seems like Zvyagintsev himself is an unreliable source when it comes to the subject of him and the legendary Russian auteur…
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| The Mirror / The Banishment |
One one hand, he kind of downplays the influence of Tarkovsky. This is totally understandable because no matter how much filmmakers may be influenced by the works of others - you don’t want
your work constantly associated with someone else.
Hal Hartley said it best when he talked about the constant comparisons he got with Jim Jarmusch early on in his career:
Being mentioned in the same breath as Jim Jarmusch was kind of swell. But I always thought, god, he must be so embarrassed to have to now tug not only the weight of his own reputation of work but of other people
This seems to be the case with Andrey Zvyagintsev…
I don’t remember when I said anything about or say much about Tarkovsky. He puts a certain pressure on all Russian film directors and some try to escape and some try to repeat after him - Andrey Zvyagintsev, thepavlovic.com
he also went on to say:
You know after our first award for The Return in Venice when we received the Golden Lion. Immediately the media in Venice were constantly referencing Ivan’s Childhood by Tarkovsky. The media was constantly making comparisons between Tarkovsky and myself obviously because of the same first name Andrey, both of our first films won the Golden Lion and they are both films about children or boys, and in some way the military. Then after all these comparisons at some point, you know after all those questions constantly repeating this comparison with Tarkovsky. I just promised myself that I will never ever talk about it again and basically this is my answer to you, but you see as hard as I try I’m still talking about it. Basically, no one will let me decide whose name I should put the cross next to - Andrey Zvyagintsev, theleftlion.co.uk
But then he also says stuff like this:
It was a film ANDREI RUBLEV, the one that he named and it was in this very moment that I changed completely and I realized that I am in love with cinema - Andrey Zvyagintsev, thepavlovic.com
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Andrei Rublev / The Banishment
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And…
Of course, Tarkovsky's movies are Olympic gods to me, they're some of my favorites - Andrey Zvyagintsev, thepavlovic.com
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The Mirror / The Return
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So there
is a Tarkovsky influence. Perhaps Zvyagintsev is just sick of talking about it. It could also be a case study on exhausted filmmakers forgetting what they said after constant interviews during a press run.
Either way, there are too many great visual similarities between the two filmmakers (both major & minor) to not highlight. Also, if we’re being honest, only two of his films are truly “Tarkovsky-ian” (The Return and The Banishment). His other three features just happen to have some coincidental visual similarities which is also shown below…
