The Mirror(Zerkalo)

Wind rises, rain falls, fire blazes; psychic and memories, like elemental forces, come and go with what seems a life of their own. The loneliness of childhood in the countryside, the tragedy of the Great War, the bitterness of a failed marriage… shards of emotionally charged reminiscence, dream, reality, newsreel and hope all succeeding one another to confront him with the ineluctable problems of existence. In Tarkovsky’s most personal, allusive and spellbinding film poem, he sought not only to retrieve the regretful past but to redeem a flawed present. Through painterly compositions and indelible imagery, alongside the affecting verses recited by his father, Arseny Tarkovsky, a mother and her love is transcended and immortalised.

30/11 (Sat) Speaker: Mary Wong (Writer and Associate Professor in Chinese Department at Lingnan University)