SteinMo What a freaking movie. So many twists and turns. Absolutely intense from start to finish.

InformationRap This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Married Baby Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?

Francene Odetta It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

clanciai What strikes you first in this film is the very careful and extremely esthetic visual composition: every scene is like a beautiful painting, and Tarkovsky's knack for making his women exceptionally beautiful enhances the visual gratification. The actors are also all very good, Erland Josephson and Allan Edwall leading the extremely extraordinary speculations. A retired celebrity of letters and the theatre celebrates his birthday together with his friends and family in an isolated beautiful spacious old-fashioned house by the sea, when apparently the third world war breaks out. His wife immediately succumbs to hysterics, the young doctor Victor (Sven Wollter) gives them sedatives, the professor drinks brandy, while his friend Otto (Allan Edwall) comes with bizarre alternatives.I always had some difficulty with Tarkovsky's later abstract films for their extremely slow pace marked by a total absence of action, especially "Stalker" and "Nostalgia", but here something keeps happening all the time to keep you awake and interested: small details, the child's pranks, the mysterious kitchen maid in her beauty, Otto's indispensable bicycle, mirrors of course, breathtaking long shots, and above all the philosophical or parapsychological development going to bizarre extremes. How is this predicament to be dealt with? That's the issue of the labyrinth leading you on for constantly more exciting thought and practical experiments.This was the year of Ronald Reagan's strikes against Libya, the beginning of the Glasnost movement with Gorbachev, and the murder of the Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme, a mystery still unresolved. And in the end of the year after this film Andrei Tarkovsky died of cancer at 54, which he probably had attracted from toxic fumes as early as during the shooting of "Stalker".There is much of Bergman here, the team is all Bergman's, and one could describe the film as more Bergman than Bergman. There is also many reminiscences of Carl Th. Dreyer, but it's still definitely all Tarkovsky: you recognize his special peculiarities and details in almost every scene.The most peculiar detail of the film is perhaps the surrealistic war scenes of total confusion showing random people running about in bewilderment among the ruins of a car and a lot of rubbish. The street shown in this scene is the very place where Prime Minister Olof Palme was shot six months after the film had been completed, and the camera is placed on the very spot - a notable coincidence.So where does all this lead to? Pure metaphysics. It's definitely a masterpiece of art but very difficult to understand, but it presents a very intriguing thought experiment - the professor is willing to sacrifice everything if the war is averted, he does sacrifice everything including his own mind, and he seems to achieve the desired result.The film is dedicated to the director's son, and the son in the film clearly stands in for him and both introduces and ends the film - to Bach's most beautiful air from the Passion of St. Matthew - "Have mercy", "Erbarme dir..."

Leofwine_draca THE SACRIFICE is the final film in the career of Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky, who died in the same year this was released. It's a Swedish-made movie which is very much in the same style as the director's other work, in other words focusing exclusively on visual imagery at the expense of narrative and offering very little in the way of meat or plot. The story is supposedly about a group of characters in a rural setting experiencing the end of the world, but as usual for Tarkovsky it's dragged out to the degree that it gets boring very quickly, and is far too long-winded for its own good. A pity, as the director's visuals are as arresting as ever.

alxbby *some spoilers are included* After I've watched this for the first time, I was confused and not very happy. I liked the movie, but I expected it to be a total sacrifice movie because I was enchanted by Lars Von Trier movies and his work which is pretty cruel in my opinion ( and that's why I adore him) and then this movie gave me some kind of easy, light, kinda sleepy heavenly feel. It slowly introduced me to the world of the eternal beauty of nature, subtle philosophy teachings and the kindness of Alexander (I loved his personality all the time). It is not perfect because of the sacrifice itself, but of the glorious images which are also some very strong symbols. I adored the fire, it really touched me and I thought of some philosophy statements about the fire itself. If you want a total sacrifice I recommend "Breaking The Waves" (Lars Von Trier), but if you want an art treasure and nature yelling at your face, this is the great movie. I gave it 9/10 because the plot was little weak, maybe that is why I love this? I don't know, but this movie will have its hands on my mind for a long, long time.

chuck-526 The story takes place in an isolated location on the isle of Gotland in the Baltic Sea. Although the island has a long semi-independent history, it has been an "official" part of Sweden for more than three centuries.Many of my reactions to this film are the common ones: this film is "Bergmanesque", a little different from yet not discontinuous with Tarkovsky's others; the images are striking and almost overwhelmingly powerful; the film is long and slow ("stately" to say it positively), so much so some won't have the patience to even finish watching it.I think though the story is more complex and subtle than is often stated. Supposedly the topic is a slightly off-kilter person giving up what he loves in exchange for the salvation of others as a reaction to the specter of nuclear war. After all, his life circumstances look pretty attractive to us viewers: wealthy, respected, private, and comfortable. The ominousness of the opening dialog doesn't seem warranted.But I think it's more than that, or at least more ambiguous than that. The main character isn't just slightly off-kilter, but close to collapsing completely. His life has become unbearable. And his motives are as much about "punishment" (or even "revenge") as "sacrifice".Why do I think that? For starters, how is it that the only people that will come to Alexander's birthday party are his doctor and his postman? That guest list sounds to me like an act of desperation, an admission that he's hit rock bottom. Alexander's wife is so neurotic even her daughter and her lover chide her. His daughter can't grow up in such an isolated place; she never sees anyone else anywhere near her age. And as far as her obvious age-appropriate interest in boys, there's nothing more than a bad joke about the postman being her beau. She flips between acting like she's ten and acting like she's thirty, with nothing in between. Alexander sleeps on the couch in his office rather than in the marital bed , and everyone acts as though that happens all the time. When he bicycles to his servant's house (or at least dreams he does), along the way he sees the doctor's empty car with his wife's shawl; clearly he's aware that his wife is having an affair with his "best friend". His servant's immediate reaction is "something terrible must have happened at home", and it's apparent this isn't the first time she's seen Alexander's home situation become intolerable. And the doctor's plan to move to Australia is a truly momentous, one-in-a-million attempt to escape forever. The doctor's calm, detached, slightly ironic bearing belies the awfulness of the words he speaks about just how dysfunctional Alexander's household is.