The Mirror

Andrei Tarkovsky’s The Mirror (1975) is an Oedipal stream of consciousness masterpiece. The film utilized a combination of varying scenes (even Soviet News Reels) to recount memories that become distorted overtime. The Mirror is probably the closet attempt at putting the minds eye on screen. This works effectively as the scenes interweave in perfect rhythm. The Mirror makes Sergei Eisenstein’s editing techniques look like that of a Burger King commercial.

The actress that played Tarkovsky’s assumed Mother also plays his wife (Margarita Terekhova). Tarkovsky’s not trying to hide his deep love for his Mama. Pier Paolo Pasolini also loved his Mother enough to direct his own version of Oedipus Rex. Commies sure do love their Mommies.


Artistic Soviet propaganda wouldn’t be complete without newsreel propaganda of Hitler’s dead doppelganger. Why Tarkovsky incorporated this in The Mirror is beyond me. Random photos of Leon Trotsky and Josef Stalin cover the walls of a decaying Soviet factory. Tarkovsky’s mother is a slave to this system. The Communists are staunch Feminists and proponents of “equality.” 100 million dead to confirm that equality.


Tarkovsky’s Mother and Father also lend their artistry to The Mirror. His father’s poems are narrated throughout the film as well as his mother’s voice. This is obviously Tarkovsky’s most personal film and in my opinion his best. The Mirror is a true “auteur” piece.


The slave masters of the USSR were very angered by The Mirror. I don’t think it benefited the collectivist society that funded it. It's fairly amazing how a country that gives no rights to its citizens could produce such an intimate film. I doubt the USSR had any idea what Tarkovsky’s were about.

-Ty E