"A space odyssey into the interior of the psyche"

On March 7, 1975, in a limited film distribution in the Soviet Union, Andrei Tarkovsky’s film “The Mirror” was released.

The film was conceived by Tarkovsky in 1964, but for many years the communist leadership of the cinema industry in the person of Goskino chairman Romanov did not give permission to shoot this film. Only in 1972, after replacing Romanov, a party functionary with incomplete education, but with 3 classes of a higher party school, with Fedor Yermash, Tarkovsky was able to make a long-planned film.

F. Yermash allowed the shooting of the film, but subsequently greatly interfered with the promotion of the film. At the end of shooting of the film, its pre-premiere screening took place in a narrow circle, to which the pride of the Soviet intelligentsia were invited: Chingiz Aitmatov, great writer, Yuri Bondarev, great writer and public figure, Peter Kapitsa, great physicist, Nobel laureate, Pavel Nilin, famous writer, Victor Shklovsky, famous writer and literary critic, Dmitry Shostakovich, great composer. All of them enthusiastically accepted the film of Tarkovsky. But, apparently, it was precisely what frightened Yermash. The film was released, but in limited release.

Limited distribution meant in this case that there was no official premiere of the film. The film was shown only in several cinemas, as a rule at the outskirts of city. A total of 84 copies of the film were released. And the film in the first year of such a limited rental was able to watch only 2.2 million Soviet moviegoers. However, Russian film critic Yevgeny Nefyodov believes that in this case the “forbidden fruit” effect worked, and Tarkovsky should be grateful to those who created obstacles to his largely autobiographical film production. In his review of 2014, Nefyodov wrote:

"You see, they assigned the second category to the tape and gave a small circulation (84 copies) - however, this approach helped the film with sophisticated film language, at first forcing unprepared viewers to leave in the middle of the session, to gather a significant audience in 2.2 million people. "

In any case, information about the film leaked abroad, and the organizer of the Cannes film festival, Maurice Bessy, asked Goskino to submit Tarkovsky's film to the festival. Ermash promised. But, as a true Communist, he did not fulfill his promise. In the end, as it turned out, his behavior of "true Communist" Yermash shat another Soviet blockbusters. Sergey Bondarchuk's great film "They fought for the Motherland" was nominated for the Palme d'Or at the Cannes film festival in 1975, and it had every chance of winning. But the jury of the film festival, annoyed by the behavior of the Communist chief of the Soviet cinema, "rolled" the film of Bondarchuk. Moreover, Bondarchuk's film did not receive an invitation to any other, more or less significant international film festival.

It is possible that another Soviet cinema masterpiece - Larisa Shepitko's film "The Ascent" - suffered because of Yermash's attitude to Tarkovsky's creation. The fact is that Maurice Bessy, offended by the act of Yermash, promised to no longer include Soviet films in the competitive program of the Cannes Film Festival. And "The Ascent", although it participated in the 1976 Cannes Film Festival, but only in an out-of-competition program.

Yermash also promised Tarkovsky to present "The Mirror" at the Moscow International Film Festival. And he presented. But only in the non-competitive program. Probably in this way the main competitor for the film "Dersu Uzala" by Akira Kurosawa was eliminated.

That's how Andrei Tarkovsky’s “The Mirror” turned out to be deprived of festival prizes. But the film, despite all the efforts of the communist bosses, received the widest international recognition. The film got a lot of laudatory reviews of foreign film critics. For instance rottentomatoes.com notes 100% consensus of film critics in a positive assessment of the film. The most generalized characterization of the film, in my opinion, was given by the Finnish film critic Antti Alanen, who called the film «A space odyssey into the interior of the psyche».

But not only foreign film critics praised the work of A. Tarkovsky. One of the most respected and respected Russian film critics Sergey Kudryavtsev concluded his laudatory review with the words:

“The entire film of Andrei Tarkovsky is a mirror set before us. We must recognize and understand ourselves in such a mirror. Many people see only mirror glass and a frame. But do not see Face."

In The New York Times, April 13, 1975, i.e. a little more than a month after the film was released, an article by Moscow newspaper correspondent James F. Clarity appeared, in which, in particular, it was written:

""Mirror," a new film by Andrei Tarkovsky, the controversial and unorthodox Soviet director, is delighting, puzzling, disaping serious Muscovite movie enthusiasts. The film began showing in two theaters here this week and instantly became the talk of moviegoing intellectuals because, they say, nothing quite like "Mirror" has ever been made before by a Soviet director. Scores of people have been clamoring for tickets in the last few days.Some Muscovites who have seen the film predict that it is sure to be attacked for its unorthodoxy by the ideologically oriented critics of the official press. Unconcerned with abuse in the way he has created "Mirror" — using techniques familiar to viewers of Federico Fellini and Ingmar Bergman pictures, but not to many Soviet moviegoers. ... "Mirror," a Mosfilm production, is not at all easy to understand, in the sense that it does not have the traditionally recognizable plot structure that is rarely tampered with by Soviet directors."

And in the finale of her articles, Clarity concludes:

""Mirror," according to the criticism of several of Mr. Tarkovsky's fellow directors, will narrow his audience in the Soviet Union. It could increase his audience and his prestige in the West, if the Soviet authorities permit the film to be shown abroad."

Perhaps precisely because the communist leadership of Soviet cinema understood what was obvious to Clarity, it created all sorts of obstacles for the film to go beyond the USSR. Without worrying about how this will affect the prestige of the country and its art as a whole, how it will affect other works of Soviet cinema.

I quoted this long quote from an article by an American journalist, which is why. Analyzing the reviews about the film, naturally, I could not pass by a few, about a half dozen, sharply negative reviews from users of Kinopoisk. So negative that characteristics such as "cinematic schizophrenia", "film for sociopaths", etc., etc. are allowed. What is characteristic, common to these negative reviews is dissatisfaction with the lack of a standard, consistent plot. That is, the American journalist looked into the water, and even a few years before the birth of the authors of these reviews. In other words, how predictable are the thoughts of these "reviewers"! Well, just like the behavior of an amoeba.

But the question arises: if the film is, if we summarize the conclusions of the authors of these reviews, just incoherent intimate memories of the author, then why was the communist authorities so afraid to release the film abroad? Or maybe American culturologist Dennis Grunes is right, who wrote about the film "Mirror":

"Tarkovsky’s haunting evocation of childhood and time-elastic symbolical autobiography blossom into a meditation on Soviet history, implying an antitotalitarian dialectic between personal and national histories wherein individuals become the prism through which a society is best understood and judged, thereby reversing the Soviet dogmatic telescope"?

However, the inaccessibility of "The Mirror" for understanding of 20-25 year old reviewers is understandable. Their pristine mind is clear of knowledge of the history of their native country. But that is not their fault. This is a consequence of the policy of the "party and government" in the field of education and culture, a policy that led to an almost complete absence of reliable, not mythical, knowledge about the history of the native country.

And further. No matter how negatively individual users of Kinopoisk would regard Tarkovsky’s "The Mirror", they all unanimously note the brilliant role in this film of our wonderful Actress Margarita Terekhova.

The film "Mirror" was highly praised not only by film critics, but also by the vast majority of ordinary moviegoers. 71% of IMDB and Kinopoisk users gave this film a rating of 8 to 10. Based on the foregoing, the film "The Mirror" according to FilmGourmand has a rating of 8.034 and occupies 674th Rank in the Golden Thousand.