Andrei Rublev

This 1966, epically long and epically concieved, film from Andriy Tarkovskiy is, well, epic.
It is very difficult to get a grasp on. It reminded us, if it is fair to compare such a monstrous piece of work, with 'Marketa Lazarova'. This can, undoubtedly, be rather frustrating. The episodic structure is a slow, slow buildup.
It does though come together. The time is very long, but to be fair it is entirely necessary. Any less and the historical sweep would be lacking. But Tarkovskiy does manage to show time, genuinely, passing. The long scenes, and indeed periods, where frankly very little happens, to characters we sometimes do not at all know too well, gives us a real experience, a feeling that is rare in the homogenous world of temporal form.
The themes of the artist's struggles, indeed the individual against the collective, is brilliant in some excerpts (the bell creator is a wonderful story), and sometimes just very good.
As for the camerawork, we now come to terms with Tarkovskiy's style. We have no particular character held on to, but we have long shots. Tarkovskiy does not however have static shots. He moves his camera round, not at a crawling pace but still at a pretty slow one. His shots remind us, as much as any, of the great Flemish village painters (Brueghel, above all). This is in the dark tones, the very blank, in some respects, use of colours, but with subtle differences of contrast that build up and up. He uses mid shots, and he uses some long shots, of the field.
One the subject of colour, Tarkovskiy introduces his striking technicolour at the end. This seems especially vivd, and at first Tarkovskiy uses simple phenomenological excitement at the pure colour. As we move out, we further see the fine images we have not seen before (a smart move; scenes of mental inspiration are next to impossible).
The music nicely sets off the historical time as well. Tarkovskiy is clearly a great examiner of the past, he shares in equal genius with perhaps only Kurosawa the ability to realise that only a kind of blank simplicity, that doesn't impose but is at once harsh, is the way to show the past as it must be.
This is a gargantuan work of art, and difficult to unravel, at times to fully engage with. The bigger the screen the better, to understand the images, in their initial coyness, at once penetrating out. Excellent.