Tockinit not horrible nor great

Fairaher The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

SeeQuant Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

Ava-Grace Willis Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

julibufa This must be the single most boring experience I've witnessed in film. I mean, regardless of the purpose of cinema, art or entertainment, at least show me something. That's the one thing I needed, something, I got nothing.It's amazing how the plot seems interesting at first, yet the film just doesn't get into it. This Andrei guy and his lady interpreter go to Italy to study a composer. Nothing of the sort matters. This composer is never mentioned again after one mindless conversation about it. I don't recall any useful information from anyone. I don't recall any scene in this film at all actually. I just don't remember how this film looks anymore, because it's incredibly boring and unimpressive. It could've been a good 5 minute short. But it was painful. Phisically painful.I didn't get any character development whatsoever. The protagonist haves this weird visions of his wife, that are only with the purpose of filler, nothing more; the interpreter kind of wants to have him but she doesn't really try; there's this weird obsession with a candle going through an empty pool; non of this is either connected, interesting, useful, explained or later developed. It just kind of exists. I'm left with absolutely nothing. Tarkovsky always does that to me, he just show me some pictures he likes and I'm suppose to do all the thinking. Now he went full speed.It takes... minutes... for the scenes... to go... anywhere zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz(Just because I don't like to excruciatingly bore myself to death, that doesn't mean I enjoy "cars exploding", like many people would say. That's just being the most pretentious you can get.)And there is no plot! The characters act like lost aliens that just try to imitate humans. Everyone moves slowly, there's no reward at the ending and I just can't grasp anything interesting from anywhere. I'm starving here!Also, the part of Domenico's speech, that seems to be one of the "highlights" people praise, has "Tarkovsky" written all over it... and not in the good way. This speech is fully out of place, extremely overlong, pretentious, meaningless and dull. I mean, it's not that it wouldn't be an interesting artistic essay on text, but it's just the fact that it could be taken out of the film and put in any other of his pictures at any moment, with any character saying it and it would make no difference for the Tarkovsky buffs. It's just not my way, this constant pretentiousness.The writing isn't any good at all either. Every conversation sounds like a drunk poet's robot stumbled upon a typewriter. I don't understand why are these people saying these things on those situations which are plain weird and (I can't stress this enough) extremely slow, so I would either fell asleep or just get frustrated. Well, I'm not going to discuss this, because I've seen all of Tarkovsky's films and honestly it doesn't surprise me. I survived watching 'The Mirror' or "Ivan's Childhood', those films at least had context and meaning. But the point is that in all of the boredom and lack of sympathy that is Tarkovsky's filmography, this is his less inspired, most depressing entry.

thomasghancock This is nowhere near the same level as Solaris or even the similarly plodding Stalker. It's pretty much a poster boy for pretentious cinema that your hillbilly friend mocks you for watching. For all that, it's not a total loss.The images are beautiful.But the characters bounce off of each other like pool balls instead of actually interacting. We never learn anything about them past superficiality. She hates him because he's not a real Russian. Or something. The New Age philosophizing would be embarrassed in the Barnes and Noble "New Age" section of books. (The only thing that saves it is the location among the ruins. Otherwise, just lock the loony up; he has nothing to offer.) We are beaten over the head repeatedly with imagery whose "meaning" we figured out 10 minutes in. Etc.I have a high tolerance for modern film; I love the "nothing happening" films of Antonioni, like L'Aventurra. But I have to agree with some others on here who were saying "Only a film student could love this movie," and I'll wager that they are the ones keeping it so highly rated.

MisterWhiplash Nostalghia, a film Andrei Tarkovsky directed while he was out of Russia and in Italy, is almost as personal, if not more-so, than his film the Mirror. The main character's first name is Andrei; there's mention of a poet named Tarkovsky (possibly Andrei's own father, if I'm not mistaken); the main character, while trying to do something else with his time (write a biography on a musician) is distracted by his personal turmoil over his family, who are back in his homeland, as was Tarkovsky to a degree (he might have been in exile, I'm not sure). And on top of this, we're given a substantial amount of black and white scenes, often either in slow-motion speed or directed by Tarkovsky to seem like such, from dreams and memories that call for a time and place that is specific but also ethereal, strange and probably symbolic.So why then does the film not work if the creator's soul was poured entirely into it? I think, perhaps, there is almost *too* much of a reliance on creating a mood of meditation, for there to be total concentration upon the atmosphere that Tarkovsky has created- as he has in all of his movies- upon which is a sort of world unto itself, seen through its filmmaker in a way no other can see it. This may be expected for one already familiar with the director's methods, but even still there's so many silent moments, so many long takes with the most slight of camera movements, so much contemplation in place of dialog (there's only a few scenes where we see characters communicate in that manner), that it takes a lot out of the viewer to stay with the ideal of spiritual redemption that Tarkovsky is after.Or is it redemption? Is it just simply a quest into oneself? Why does Andrei follow Domenico (brilliantly played in subtle/not-so-subtle form by Erland Josephsson), who cannot be really relied upon as a source of redemption or actual thought provocation? This is a man, after all, who yells out his speeches to bewildered crowds in a town square and then proceeds to go through a very severe act on himself (to Beethoven's 9th no less!) There's a lot of mystery to this character Andrei, and the actor portraying him, Oleg Jankovsky, is so subdued and detached at times that his female translator counterpart (possibly mad as well) can barely get a rise out of him save for the bloody nose. This strange sensation to seek in to a character that Tarkovsky leaves open to much interpretation, plus the procession of shots that seem to last for about as long as imaginable, makes it an uneasy viewing experience.But at the same time that there's this uneasiness, there's also a wonderment that is going on as well. I couldn't pull myself away even if a part of my mind screamed out "where's the plot?" There's such a strong sense of direction going on, the moods created in certain places (i.e. the fog over the hot springs at the Spa, the darkness in the bedrooms, the chilling sensibility to the flashbacks/dreams), almost in spite of the lack of a really solid story, as it becomes less about what happens than about what is in this character, the nature of this exile in Italy as it makes Andrei pull into his own existential finale of sorts. That finale, as some may have read, is extraordinary, maybe the whole reason, as with Sacrifice's fire finale, that Tarkovsky made the movie in the first place: the poet carries a candle, as suggested by Domenico, across a sacred pool, and when it goes out he goes back, and does this again, and again, until finally he makes it across. Never a cutaway, always intuitively shot by Tarkovsky's cameraman, and it brings on a whole other quality that crosses paths between what is fiction in the film and reality in front of the camera.While I praise the film, and recommend it, it's not the kind of work that someone who isn't familiar at all with Tarkovsky should see as an introduction. On the contrary, this might be more worthwhile as the final work in his (saddeningly) small body of work, as its pace and modus operandi can be further appreciated. Grade: A-

fedor8 First of all, please use this link: http:// www.criterionforum.org/forum/ viewtopic.php?p=142178&highlight=&sid= dd58cd36ffe474e7bd315c810cb708e6. It will lead you to a hilarious forum "discussion" about this very comment! I'll also use this opportunity to say "thanks" to Cold Bishop and the other morons for taking my texts so seriously - and making me laugh very loudly!Secondly, let me explain the high 7.9 rating on IMDb. Only around 2,000+ people voted, and they're mostly film students who FORCE themselves to like movies like this, and other pretentious boredom-seekers who find thrills in watching grass grow. "Nostalghia" is the IDEAL film to fall asleep to. I speak from experience.I absolutely loved "Solaris" and "Stalker", two brilliant, intelligent sci-fi dramas. On the other side of the Tarkovsky spectrum, I was utterly confused by "The Mirror" - which had zero story to tell (though occasionally visually very nice), I was mostly bored to tears by "Andrey Rublev" (nearly 4 hours!), but thought "The Sacrifice", his last movie, was okay (in spite of being in Swedish, an unpleasant language).Tarkovsky's two sci-fi films are based on (good) novels, and this may be the crucial point. It seems that he is pretty much lost when doing his own material. He gets bogged down in his dull poetry and philosophy, not bothering to inter-connect various parts of the two in a cohesive manner, failing to focus on the essentials. Hence all his other (non-sci-fi) movies are not much better than all the other pretentious European crap from various Godards, Bunuels, Bergmans, Triers, and other overrated, lazy "geniuses"."Nostalghia" is an overly pretentious non-story that is far too self-indulgent even for a European director. If you make movies just for your own "artistic" pleasure then why even bother releasing them? This two-hour snooze-fest could have been EASILY cut down to half that length - and it would still not be fascinating. Watching the main character walk around endlessly without saying or doing anything is just GARBAGE film-making. Lazy, and made/written by someone who overestimated himself a tad.The positive side to this movie - apart from the fact that it made me fall asleep - are some visually stunning scenes. Especially the long shots of water, which are pleasant, if a little sleep-inducing because they may be TOO pleasant. Tarkovsky seemed to have some kind of an almost-fetish for "aqua", because he filmed it in all its visual and audio glory in nearly ever movie he made.My advice to those who consider this a masterpiece is to stop lying to yourselves about your own intelligence, hence to quit being in denial about how you TRULY, honestly, perceive certain movies. Writing about a movie such as this being a "stroke of genius" is just one of many ways some people deal with an inferiority complex.Erland Josephson, as uncharismatic as he has been in all his Bergman movies, is a poor choice for the insane man. Besides, what was the point Tarkovsky was trying to make? That he is sane and the rest of us are the insane ones? What a cliché idea! So trite. And how about that last scene (a 250-minute scene, it seemed) of the Russian character carrying the candle for the insane man? Was this symbolic of something? Trying to save the world? The world needs saving from very pretentious, boring movies.Erland's character locked up his family for seven years. Hence he is not only insane, but should be put away for life. End of story. What can we possibly learn from Erland? His impassioned, idiotic left-wing "back-to-the-caves" speech was just dumb. It's something a 17 year-old manic-depressive idealist would write.Besides some nicely photographed scenes, there was a pleasant scene where the blonde actress bares one of her breasts.Tarkovsky portrays Italy as a gloomy, dark, depressing place. I have no idea why. If Italy looks like this, what should he do with Russia or Finnland??(Sick and tired of Euro-trash "classics", i.e. bad, overrated dramas? E-mail me if you want to read my totally altered subtitles of Ingmar Bergman's "Autumn Sonata", "Cries & Whispers", or "Passion Of Anne", but also the non-Bergman "Der Untergang".)