Andrei Tarkovsky

I have a few friends who are competitive athletes, specifically foot races. Not just marathons or 10k’s, but the kinds of races that involve obstacle courses through the woods at 4 a.m. or running across the south Utah desert in August or doing two races in one day. In other words, the longer and more difficult for them, the better. The enjoyment comes from the difficulty.

Personally, I think the only good race is the one to the front of the line at the buffet, but I do know movie fans who are the cinematic equivalent of long distance racers. The longer a film is, the more complex and dense it is, the better. These are the people who love all ten hours of Krzysztof Kieślowski’s modern take on the Ten Commandments, The Decalogue or seek out the deeply weird and experimental films of Guy Maddin. These are the people who watch David Lynch movies for fun. 

One filmmaker whose work appeals to that kind of viewer is Andrei Tarkovsky, the great Russian director who managed to make a series of seven challenging, sometimes subversive, always startlingly beautiful films primarily under the regime of Communism. Tarkovsky’s films are slow and meditative, with impressively long tracking shots of simple things like water running over a floor or wind blowing tall wild grass. The films are primarily in Russian, although his second to last film, Nostalgia, is also in Italian, so if you’re a lover of subtitles, he’s your guy. But more than the length or the language, Tarkovsky’s films are challenging because they are philosophically, intellectually, and artistically dense. They address abstract ideas like free will, the complex consequences of choice, and the nature of personal sacrifice and loss. Every shot of every film is carefully, expertly sculpted and composed while every line and every action is simultaneously purposeful and mysterious.

If you feel like taking on the long distance race that is a Tarkovsky film, here are three to start your training:

1986’s The Sacrifice was Tarkovsky’s final film. It tells the story of Alexander, a former actor who has retreated to the country to live as a writer with his family. Just as the family is sitting down for dinner, fighter jets fly over the house and the news tells them that war has begun and nuclear holocaust is imminent. Alexander bargains with God to stop the impending tragedy and offers to sacrifice everything he has, including his beloved family and grandson, if war can be averted. His friend tells him about a witch who lives in town and that if Alexander sleeps with her, she can make his wish come true. 

1979’s Stalker is a dystopian science fiction film that’s still influencing other films today, including the recent Natalie Portman picture, Annihilation. In the world of the film, there is a place called The Zone where the laws of nature don’t apply and where, reportedly, there is a room that, if you can get to it, will grant you what your heart secretly most desires. The Stalker of the title is the man a small group hires to get them safely through the Zone to the room. Questions about desire, the nature of the human heart, and free will abound.

 If you really want a filmic endurance race, I recommend 1966’s Andrei Rublev, the kaleidoscopic, dream-like bio-pic of a 15^th century Russian icon painter. Mostly in black and white but sometimes in eye-blistering color, it is episodic, quiet, and strange. Even though it is based in actual history, it feels like spending a few hours in an alien world. The final section of the film, the bell-casting sequence and then a montage of Rublev’s actual icons, is one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen. 

So if you are in the mood to stretch yourself cinematically and want to watch films that are beautiful, weird, maddening, and compelling, the films of Andrei Tarkovsky are the race for you.

Guillermo Del Toro

When Guillermo Del Toro’s sci fi romance The Shape of Water won the Best Director and Best Picture Oscars a couple of weeks ago, I was surprised. Not because I didn’t particularly care for it, but because the Academy generally tends to favor dramatic, serious films with a capitol F. And this season with two different films about pivotal moments in World War II, two films dealing with race and racism, two different coming-of-age movies, a highly topical Spielberg picture about the importance of the free press, and Daniel Day Lewis’s supposedly last picture directed by artiste extraordinaire Paul Thomas Anderson, it just seemed like the movie about the fish guy was the dark horse. 

It’s rare that the Academy even recognizes genre pictures. Sci fi and fantasy films often clean up at the technical awards, but when it comes to the big six – the acting categories and Best Picture and Director, films featuring elves or ray guns get left out. In fact, the only time a straight up genre movie won for Best Picture was in 2003 when Peter Jackson’s final Lord of the Rings movie, The Return of the King took home the little, golden statuette. But even at the time, it was recognized that those awards were more of a recognition for Jackson’s overall achievement of filming three special effects-laden, three-and-a-half-hour films back to back and having them not suck or lose money.

So, The Shape of Water’s victory is as surprising as it is rare. It’s nice for the Academy to recognize other kinds of films besides stereotypical Oscar-bait, but it almost feels like a dodge to avoid voting for other, more politically charged films. Either way, while it is certainly an accomplishment of cinematography, special effects, and Hollywood homage, it is one of my least favorite Del Toro films. He has been creating fascinating, entertaining, idiosyncratic movies for over two decades, and now that his mainstream acceptance is likely to bring him new fans, I have a couple of recommendations from his body of work.

Del Toro basically has two branches of movies – fun and creepy. His creepy movies like The Devil’s Backbone, and Crimson Peak are beautifully constructed and designed but not much fun. There’s some sadistic glee but not a lot joy. The best two examples of his fun films are Hellboy II: The Golden Army and Pacific Rim. 

The Hellboy sequel is a rare example of the second film being stronger than the first. The Golden Army has a tighter script, better special effects, and a bigger scale than the original. It’s a fun mélange of different mythologies, and Del Toro’s love for monsters is on full display. In particular, the Angel of Death creature who makes a deal to save Hellboy’s life and the massive stone giant that rises up out of the Irish countryside are standouts.

 Pacific Rim took Del Toro’s ridiculous nerd joy to a whole new level as it is about giant robots called jaegers battling giant Godzilla-like monsters called kaiju. It continually one-ups itself in its gleeful, over-the-top sci fi silliness. The robots have names like Gipsy Danger and Striker Eureka, while the evolving series of monsters just gets bigger, more elaborate, and more vicious with each iteration. At one point, during a Hong Kong street battle against a massive, terrifying kaiju, Gipsy Danger picks up a full-sized oil tanker and uses it like a baseball bat to club the monster. It’s that kind of silly-but-satisfying gesture that marks the best of Del Toro’s fun pictures.

His work is often literally the case of the world’s biggest and most talented comic book nerd being turned loose with 190 million dollar budgets.

Films like Hellboy and Pacific Rim will never even be nominated for Best Picture Oscars like The Shape of Water, but when it comes to what is actually fun to watch, I know what’s in my Blu Ray Player.