"Nostalghia" (1983) movie review

Characters

Eugenia

Andrey

Domenico

Credits

The first scene includes the dog, wife, two children, a grandmother, and the white horse.

Power line. Trail. River. Mist.

Just standing in the field. Russian song? Credits.

Madonna of Childbirth

Italy. Mist. Car goes round the field, away from the gate they will enter.

E: "Thank God, we arrived."

E: "It's an extraordinary painting. I cried the first time I saw it."

A: "I am fed up with all your beauties. I don't want to take it alone any more. ... I can't take it any more. That's it."

She can't--or won't--kneel in prayer.

Sacristan: "Do you want a baby too? Or are you asking God to spare you?"

E: "I'm just here to have a look."

Nothing happens for onlookers.

Sacristan: "Unfortunately, if there are any casual onlookers, who aren't supplicants, then nothing happens."

E: "What is supposed to happen?"

S: "Whatever you like, whatever you need most."

E: "Why do you think it's only the women who pray so much?"

S: "A woman is meant to have children, to raise them, with patience and self-sacrifice."

S: "You asked what I thought."

S: "I know ... you want to be happy."

Mother of all mothers,
who knows the pain of being a mother.
Mother of all mothers,
who knows the joy of being a mother.
Mother of all mothers,
who knows the joy of having a child.
Mother of all children,
who knows the pain of not having a child.
Mother who understands all,
help your daughter to become a mother.

Mystic interlude

Angel seen entering his house in Russia.

Hotel

E: "I don't understand you. You go on and on about the Madonna of Childbirth. We drove halfway across Italy in the fog. And you didn't even go in to see her."

A: "Poetry is untranslatable, like the whole of art."

E: But music ...

E: "How can we get to know each other?"

A: abolish the frontiers between states

E: Maid in Milan set fire to her house.

E: "She suffered from nostalgia ... So she burned the thing that stopped her going back."

Wikipedia

Sosnovsky is modeled on Ukrainian composer Maksym Berezovsky.

Maksym Sozontovych Berezovsky (Polish: Maksym Berezowski) (c.1745 –1777) was a Ukrainian composer, opera singer, and violinist.

Berezovsky was the first Ukrainian composer to be recognized throughout Europe and the first to compose an opera, symphony, and violin sonata. His most popular works are his sacred choral pieces written for the Orthodox Church. Much of his work has been lost; only three of the 18 known choral concertos have been found. Dmitry Bortniansky was thought to be the first Ukrainian symphonic composer until the discovery in 2002 of Berezovsky's Symphony in C by Steven Fox in the Vatican archives, composed around 1770–1772.

[Berezovsky was sent to Italy in the spring of 1769 to train with renowned teacher padre Giovanni Battista Martini at the Bologna Philharmonic Academy, where he graduated with distinction.]

According to archival discoveries in the late 20th century, Berezovsky was appointed a staff member of the imperial theatres and capellmeister of the Royal court capella eight months later. This was a high ranking position for a musician and contradicts the notion that Berezovsky’s talent was not appreciated upon his return to Saint Petersburg. Some sources state that he committed suicide as a result of depression for not being accepted upon his return to Saint Petersburg. His first biographer, Eugene Bolkhovitinov, made this assertion in 1804 based on testimonials of those who knew Berezovsky. Marina Ritzarev, a contemporary scholar, asserts that he did not commit suicide but rather likely caught a sudden fever resulting in his death after developing some psychic disease. He died in Saint Petersburg on March 24 (April 2, N.S.), 1777.

E: "Why won't you confide in me? I don't understand."

A: "Read this. You will understand." [She reads the letter late in the movie, I think. Interrupted by hotelier coming to give them their keys and rooms. She calls it "the letter from Bologna."]

A Carries the keys to his house in his coat pocket. Heard several times, not shown.

Hotelier: "He's sad because he is in love."

E: "No, I think his mind's on other things."

Something falls out of the bible. Coin? Comb with hair. Witchcraft? Spell? Curse? Superstition?

A: "Did you knock?" E: "Not yet."

E: "One, two, three--go!" Falls. Laughs.

[I'm baffled by the table saw noises. Never resolved. Just there in Dominico's scenes.]

[The rain, on the other hand, is (maybe) explained by an entry in AT's diary. One of the effects of his own depression was feeling as though rain was constantly falling around him (?).

Mystic Interlude Two

Who is the woman the Russian wife hugs and kisses? The translator? She hovers over Andrey in his dream, who seems to have a wound in his wrist or hand.

At the hot springs

OK. Zoe is the name of the dog. Called that when we first meet Domenico.

General's Chinese music: "Voice of God, of nature." No wailing.

"In the 60s, a drowned body was found here."

Domenico to his dog? Russian to translator? "Now listen, it's never too late to learn. ... Have you heard their talk? What they're interested in? You've got to be different. You know why they're in the water? They want to live forever."

D: "Never forget what he said to her. ... 'You are she who is not; I am Who AM.'"

A: "I don't understand 'the faith.' What is it?"

A: "He's not mad. He has faith."

A: "We don't know what madness is. They're troublesome, inconvenient. We refuse to understand them. They're alone. But they're certainly closer to the truth."

People who write stuff like this have evidently never worked in a soup kitchen or visited a nut ward.

"Movie magic": insane characters are played by relatively sane actors, who can give up their mimicry of a psychotic state at will and at a moment's notice, for dramatic effect. I've lived with at least one certified schizophrenic, and took a friend to a hospital who was suffering an acute psychotic breakdown. Neither is a beautiful condition.

Bagno Vignoni

"It is known that Catherine of Siena stayed in Bagno Vignoni several times, taken there by her mother in an attempt to dissuade her from joining the Order."http://www.cretedisiena.com/paesi/Bagno_Vignonienglish.htm

Hotel Corridor

A: "You're prettier in this light."

A: "I'm beginning to understand."

She's hurt. She had hoped he was beginning to understand her--her crush on him. He is interested in why Domenico kept his family locked up for seven years.

Visit with Domenico

Plastic sheet full of water--NOOOOOOO! It wouldn't last. It would rip itself to shreds after a few storms. You need a tent top to shed the water.

Yes, the bread and wine from the mad man. So, for AT, he is "alter christus." [Paul: "fool for Christ."]

Some reviewers love the water splashing around the brown and green bottle. To what end?

D: "We need bigger ideas."

D: "I was selfish before. I wanted to save my family. Everyone must be saved. The whole world. ... It's simple. ... You need to cross the water with the lighted candle. ... I can't do it. When I light the candle and get in the water, they pull me out. They kick me out. And they shout, 'You're crazy!' ... Help me."

A: "Why me, of all people?"

Domenico does not answer the question directly. He asks whether Andrey is married, whether he has children, and whether his wife is beautiful.

A: "She's like that but all black [ma piu nera]." "More black?" "But darker"?

D: "We're planning something big in Rome." Then starts calling for Zoe. 1+1=1 in the background. "It's wrong to keep thinking the same thing."

"Papa. Is this the end of the world?"

Andrey and Eugenia in his room

Holds keys to his house (or hotel room, or both) when he finds E. in his room.

"Why are you afraid of everything? Full of complexes. You are not free. You all seem to want freedom, you talk about freedom, but when you get it, you don't know what to do with it or what it is."

"You're a kind of saint. You're interested in Madonnas. No! You're different. ... Can't I ever meet the right man? I don't mean you. You're the worst. But I swear I'll find my kind of man. And I have. He's waiting for me in Rome. You dress badly, too. And you're boring. ... You're the kind I'd sleep with rather than explain why I don't feel like it. ... I can't take any more!"

"Thank God there's been nothing between us! Just the thought makes me sick!"

A: "She's insane."

E: "Run back to your wife! Though you nearly betrayed her! ... Hypocrite!"

A slaps her as she walks away. (?) His nose starts bleeding. Chinese music.

Wipes his blood off the floor.

She brings the letter back. Bad dream: standing as a statue. "I knew I would be harshly punished if I moved because our lord and master was watching us. ... It was no dream, but my reality. I could try not to return to Russia, but the thought kills me because I would die if I never again saw my homeland--the birches, the air of my childhood." [Meanwhile, A lies down with blood on his nose and lip--like a corpse, I suppose.]

His wife's name is Maria.

Mystic Interlude Three

Back to opening point of view: dog, son, daugher, mother (?), wife, white horse, mist, river, power line

I wonder whether it is a stuffed horese. Too still.

"Andrei Tarkovsky (1932-1986)."

By 1935, when the family moved to a place outside Moscow, strains were beginning to show in the relationship between mother and father, leading to their divorce and the ultimate departure of the father. Andrei grew up in the company of his mother, grandmother, and sister, without a man in the house.

Andrei Tarkovsky died of lung cancer in Paris on the night of 28/29 December 1986. His life's work is the tree he himself planted and that, if we tend it well, may be wakened to life in the future. In the end, it was as if he had been overtaken by his own images, by the white horse recurring in his films, and by his own preoccupations with the Apocalypse and the vision of St. John: "And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death."

The flooded church

[Poetry, drunken interlude, flooded church, urchin girl, fire, visions, ...]

"Everyone shoots in Italy. And there are too many Italian shoes."

Keys in his pocket. Plans to wear different coat when he goes home.

"You know the great love stories, the classics? No kissing. No kissing. Nothing at all. Very pure. Hence great. Feelings unspoken are unforgettable."

Parable of the slimy pond: "I live in there."

Angela

"Are you happy about life?"

"About life, yes!"

Domenico voiceover?

"Gather up at dawn my melted wax and read in it whom to mourn, what to be proud of. How, by donating the last portion of joy, to die lightly and in the shelter of a makeshift roof, to light up posthumously, like a word."

The book of poetry is burning as A sleeps.

Garbage-strewn alley.

Mirrored cabinet.

A finds Domenico inside himself?

Saw blade sounds. Always associated with Domenico.

"My God, why did I do it? They're my children, my family, my own flesh and blood. How could I? Years without seeing the sun, fearing the light of day. Why?"

In a ruined church

Ruins of a church.

Prayer or chant in the background.

Woman: "Lord, do you see how he's asking? Say something to him."

Lord: "But what would happen if he heard my voice?"

Woman: "Let him feel your presence."

Lord: "I always do, but he's not aware of it."

Back to him passed out in the flooded church. The book of poetry is almost completely consumed by the flames.

Rome

E: "He's here in Rome for a demonstration. They do weird things, like Fidel Castro."

Vittorio.

E: "We'll probably go to India. He's interested in spiritual issues. He's from a distinguished family in Orvieto."

E: "How's your heart?"

A: "I don't know. I've reached the limit. I want to go home."

E's last line: "Good-bye, Vittorio. I'm going to buy some cigarettes." [He has cigarettes, and is smoking one as she leaves.]

D: "We must listen to the voices that seem useless. ... Someone must shout that we will build the pyramids. It doesn't matter if we don't. We must fuel that wish and stretch the corners of the soul like an endless sheet. If you want the world to go forward we must hold hands. We must mix the so-called healthy with the so-called sick. ... Freedom is useless if you don't have the courage to look us in the eye, to eat, drink, and sleep with us. It's the so-called healthy who have brought the world to the verge of ruin. ... We're not crazy; we're serious. ... Here's my new pact with the world: it must be sunny at night and snowy in August. Great things end; small things endure. Society must become united again, instead of so disjointed. Just look at nature and you'll see that life is simple. We must go back to where we were, to the point where we took the wrong turn. We must go back to the main foundations of life without dirtying the water. What kind of world is this if a madman tells you, 'You must be ashamed of yourselves!' Music now."

Dominico's last coherent line: "Oh, mother! The air is that light thing that moves around your head and becomes clearer when you laugh."

I hate this meme. "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest." It is the deconstructionist approach to life: "We can't define the difference between sanity and insanity, therefore there is no difference. The so-called 'sane' are oppressing the so-called 'insane.' It's just a matter of words, not of reality. The 'insane' are just as logical and consistent and virtuous and good as the 'sane'; they just refuse to play the 'sane game.' They are artists of originality. They see things we can't see and hear things we can't hear."

We have zillions of holy idiots. We call them "rock stars."

Sign as Domenico suffers: "Tomorrow is the end of the world."

Andrey's death

Andrey's true home is in the church? He's home at last. Russia and his spiritual longings are satisfied.

I admire A's sacrifice as much as I dislike D's.

"Dedicated to the memory of my mother."