Made by Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky, in Soviet Russia, “Mirror” is one of those films that can’t really be wrapped up in a clean synopsis. The film is a criss-crossing thread of recollections, dreams, hallucinations, newsreels, poems, and general glimpses of an unseen male narrator’s life. Many of these incidents are framed around the man’s childhood and his recent past, with his mother and his wife (played by the same woman, Margarita Terekhova). The film is nonlinear, ponderous, starkly beautiful, and confusing.
Of the 257 film’s I’ve watched in this project, most are considered to be some of the greatest films of all time (through a certain lens, at least). This one is no exception. It’s considered to be Tarkovsky’s magnum opus, has 100% on Rotten Tomatoes, and is on many directors and film critics’ top 50 or top 100 greatest films lists. In fact, I finally chose to watch it because it kept coming up, over and over again, on Cinefix’s great movie lists. They’re even known to poke fun at themselves over how much they gush over this film.
But this film didn’t do anything for me. I found it visually beautiful and at times interesting but otherwise, nothing. When it finished, I immediately went to google and typed “The Mirror 1975 explained” and most responses said, ‘it’s not that kind of movie; one that has or needs a meaning to be explained’. And that my inability to just absorb the film as it is, is because my brain has been rotted by franchise films, or I don’t understand poetry. Because my screen wasn’t big enough, or the volume wasn’t loud enough. Because I went into it knowing too much, or too little, about the film. Because I’m meant to do more analytical heavy lifting than I’m used to, or I need to avoid analysis all together.
I think I’m going to just chalk it up to preference.