The Mirror is far more impenetrable than Stalker and Andrei Rublev which both are quite straightforward even if there is a depth to them, barely having any narrative and staying in a dream like state in which a lot happens, but very little is explained.
The film follows a dying man's memories of his life and the different moments that came to shape who he had been during his life even if the viewers don't learn that he's just now dying until we reach the very end of the movie. Technically this would be me spoiling the ending of the film but I believe that the film becomes much less confusing when you know that the man is seeing his life flash before his eyes and the different events of the film aren't just random scenes with no connection whatsoever.
It is definitely a surrealistic film, reminiscent of a film like Mulholland Drive (or other surrealistic Lynch-works) for its dream like and abstract atmosphere. Scenes and characters actions make some sense and what's going on on screen is never completely abstract just a bit confusing when taking the film as a whole into question. It is a detached film, with many different layers, several of which I most likely haven't given a single thought from my first and only vieweing and with many themes that hopefully will reveal themselves as I revisit this film down the line.
The film follows two different kinds of storylines, one being the mans experiences growing up with his mother and the other one being the mans life as an adult, with his wife and his son. It sounds straightforward enough but it gets impossible to keep track of when the actor that plays the man's mother also plays his wife and the actor who plays the man as a child also plays his son, so you're never quite sure if what you're seeing is his own experiences or the experiences he's had through his son. This is only one of the few things that makes the film difficult to keep track of, another reason would be the lack of narrative. You've got scenes that have no connection to eachother and nothing that either creates or furthers any kind of plot, which leads to the viewer never being quite sure of exactly what is going on.
But The Mirror isn't a puzzle waiting for the viewer to finally solve, it was never intended to be a mystery like the aforementioned Mulholland Drive which has its clues laid out perfectly for the viewers. It is a grand spectacle that leaves its true meaning up to the viewer to decipher. It's a film that should be viewed and then thought about and discussed, where the real heavy stuff lies in the different themes that Tarkovsky bring up with this film. It's a work that's so massive and so complex, despite being Tarkovsky's shortest film and the one that's the least coherent.
I might not have loved it as much as I loved Stalker but I found this film to be immersive and incredibly thought provoking. It's one that I've waited to write about for a few days just so that I could contemplate the film in peace and quiet, not worrying about shitting out a bunch of sentences on whether it's good or not.
If I would score The Mirror it would probably land somewhere around an eight but I didn't feel like writing a review since I wasn't so sure on whether or not I could do the film its justice if I opted to write my thoughts on it after only having viewed it once when it definitely needs a lot of time to fully sink in.
I pretty much let this text become what I tried to avoid, a text about whether or not I thought The Mirror was good or not. I'll close of with saying that I definitely thought it was great but it's not an accessible film and not the kind of film you grab a bowl of popcorn and then go watch with your buddies on a Friday night.
The Mirror [1975]
dir. Andrei Tarkovsky
Anton Öberg Sysojev
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