Death and Transcendence: Andrei Tarkovsky's "Andrei Rublev" (archieved)

Recently, a couple of friends and I attended LACMA’s screening of Andrei Tarkovsky’s cinematic masterpiece, Andrei Rublev. The film concerns the famous icon painter, Andrei Rublev. Set amidst the Russian wars of the 15th century, the biography of Rublev is largely Tarkovsky’s creation, however the historical events surrounding him are real (at times, too real). While Rublev himself does not consistently assume the role of a typical protagonist, the historical scenery around him functions to demonstrate the force of Rublev’s paradoxical nature.  It is a mystery how, despite Russia’s austere historical identity, that the country had the capacity to produce someone like Andrei.   Andrei found himself in a world conflated by the odd intermingling of political ideology and mystic spirituality, thus providing him no glorified hue from which to affix his images upon. Tarkovsky intentionally filmed in black and white, thus emphasizing the setting’s barrenness and the fact that Andrei’s world was one of rare provision. But, somehow he was able to release the sublime from the ambiguous grey confiscating the Russian soul and, indeed, its metaphoric extension to the world of the film’s viewers. Andrei discovered (not unaided) a way to expose God’s presence to a land grieved with a sense of absence perpetuated by the ruthless hands of those who thought they could capitalize on that seeming meaninglessness by assuming the role king and god.

In Andrei Rublev, we find the once cloistered monk-artist exposed to the horrors of the outside world’s ensuing battle: between state patronage and repression, Orthodox Christianity and pagan hedonism. Unlike the fictional character, Don Quixote , there is little comedy instigating sympathy for our supposed hero. Moving with an almost stoical impassivity, Andrei struggles to overcome revulsion. After giving up on painting, Andrei finally meets a boy who challenges the artist to look at the world again; emphasizing Tarkovsky’s ideal that art’s purest form culminates in unselfish acts. The film attributes a significant role to the artist, as if his powers have the ability to hold the whole of creation together as it bangs against itself, threatening to pull itself apart. It does, but through Andrei we are given the expectation of resurrection. After having massacred a village and burned the church, Vladamir’s new Czar assigns a young boy, the last living of the bell-makers, to the task of crafting a new bell. With the threat of beheading behind him, the boy assets to the mammoth task with a passionate sense of urgency.

The bell has functioned as an incredibly powerful symbol in Russian history. As Elif Batuman writes, concerning the return of the Danilov bells to the Danilov Monestary in Russia:

In Russian history and culture, church bells occupy a mysteriously important position. Their tolling, Father Roman said, has been known to bring hard-hearted people to repentance, and to dissuade would-be murderers and suicides. Whereas Western European bells are tuned to produce familiar major and minor chords, a Russian bell is prized for its individual, untuned voice, producing rhythmic layered peals. Russian bells are given names like Swan, Bear, or Sheep, and are considered to be capable of suffering. Mentions Konstantin Saradzhev, “Moscow’s most famous bell ringer.” Tells the story of Boris Godunov and one of Ivan the Terrible’s heirs, Dmitri. Under Stalin, bell ringing was prohibited by law, and thousands of tons of bells were destroyed. (The New Yorker, April 27, 2009)

In Andrei Rublev, the ringing of the bell triggers the film’s first relieving moments. The bell seems to represent the irony of a world founded on self-contradiction and the life lived “between the times.” This setting provides the material from which Andrei bears witness. From the purview of the bell’s authoritative presence and cathartic resonances the prophet beckons.  Slowly, the first glimpses of color begin to overcome the screen, as if consuming all of the events that transpired before it.  Burnt orange emanates from the screen as the camera pan’s closely across the surface of Andrei’s icons, seemingly representative of the baptismal fire (Matt. 3:11). A fire which consumes, cleanses and resurrects, indeed, presenting itself as a challenge to evil’s unrelenting adage– “Long live death!”. The film concludes with a view of The Old Testament Trinity, inviting the audience to gaze into the very face of God Himself.  The icon provides a window into divine things, a deterrent from material idolatry, and the abuse of power.  We are admonished to take up our proper residency under the authority of the true King, where judgment and beauty, ultimacy and grace, truth and love, exude from a single Countenance.