Mirror

A subtly ravishing passage through the halls of time and memory, this sublime reflection on twentieth-century Russian history by Andrei Tarkovsky (Stalker) is as much a poem composed in images, or a hypnagogic hallucination, as it is a work of cinema. In a richly textured collage of varying film stocks and newsreel footage, the recollections of a dying poet flash before our eyes, his dreams mingling with scenes of childhood, wartime, and marriage, all imbued with the mystical power of a trance. Largely dismissed by Soviet critics on its release because of its elusive narrative structure, Mirror has since taken its place as one of the director’s most renowned and influential works, a stunning personal statement from an artist transmitting his innermost thoughts and feelings directly from psyche to screen.

Film Info

  • Soviet Union
  • 1975
  • 106 minutes
  • Black and White/Color
  • 1.37:1
  • Russian
  • Spine #1084

TWO-BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

  • New 2K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
  • Andrei Tarkovsky: A Cinema Prayer, a 2019 documentary about the director by his son Andrei A. Tarkovsky
  • The Dream in the Mirror, a new documentary by Louise Milne and Seán Martin
  • New interview with composer Eduard Artemyev
  • Islands: Georgy Rerberg, a 2007 documentary about the cinematographer
  • Archival interviews with Tarkovsky and screenwriter Alexander Misharin
  • New English subtitle translation
  • PLUS: An essay by critic Carmen Gray and, for the Blu-ray, the 1968 film proposal and literary script by Tarkovsky and Misharin that they ultimately developed into Mirror

New cover design by Nessim Higson

Purchase Options

TWO-BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

  • New 2K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
  • Andrei Tarkovsky: A Cinema Prayer, a 2019 documentary about the director by his son Andrei A. Tarkovsky
  • The Dream in the Mirror, a new documentary by Louise Milne and Seán Martin
  • New interview with composer Eduard Artemyev
  • Islands: Georgy Rerberg, a 2007 documentary about the cinematographer
  • Archival interviews with Tarkovsky and screenwriter Alexander Misharin
  • New English subtitle translation
  • PLUS: An essay by critic Carmen Gray and, for the Blu-ray, the 1968 film proposal and literary script by Tarkovsky and Misharin that they ultimately developed into Mirror

New cover design by Nessim Higson

Mirror
Cast
Margarita Terekhova
Alexei’s mother/Natalia
Ignat Daniltsev
Ignat/Alexei, age twelve
Larisa Tarkovskaya
Nadezhda
Alla Demidova
Elizaveta Pavlovna
Anatoly Solonitsyn
Passerby
Nikolai Grinko
Man at printshop
Tamara Ogorodnikova
Nanny
Yuri Nazarov
Military instructor
Oleg Yankovsky
Father
Filipp Yankovsky
Alexei, age five
Yuri Sventikov
Yuri Zharov
Tatiana Reshetnikova
Young proofreader
Innokenti Smoktunovsky
Alexei (voice-over)
Credits
Director
Andrei Tarkovsky
Screenplay by
Alexander Misharin
Andrei Tarkovsky
Cinematography by
Georgy Rerberg
Art direction by
Nikolai Dvigubsky
Music by
Eduard Artemyev
Sound by
Semyon Litvinov
Edited by
Lyudmila Feyginova
Costumes by
Nelli Fomina
Makeup by
Vera Rudina
Poems by
Arseny Tarkovsky
Poems read by
Arseny Tarkovsky

Current

Mirror: “All Is Immortal”
Mirror: “All Is Immortal”

The fourth of Andrei Tarkovsky’s seven features is his most oneiric and resistant to interpretation, drawing from the director’s own childhood memories to create a fluid sense of history.

By Carmen Gray

Hlynur Pálmason’s Top 10
Hlynur Pálmason’s Top 10

The director of Godland pays tribute to Robert Bresson, Andrei Tarkovsky, Stanley Kubrick, and other filmmakers with an awe-inspiring command of their craft.

Mark Jenkin’s Top 10
Mark Jenkin’s Top 10

The director of Enys Men celebrates the holy trinity of Bergman, Bresson, and Tarkovsky, and expresses his love for films that are narratively simple but thematically complex.