Andreĭ Arsenʹevich Tarkovskiĭ
3) Stalker
Description
At the center of an outlawed region called The Zone lies a mystical room altered by unnatural forces. Armed guards are the first in a series of lethal obstructions that prevent outsiders from reaching the place where fantastic powers can fulfill man's greatest desires. Only the Stalker can lead a scientist and writer through The Zone where an obstacle course of mental and physical barriers tests the limits of their endurance. At the end they must...
Series
Criterion collection volume 34
Description
Tracing the life of a renowned icon painter, Andrei Tarkovsky's second feature conjures the murky world of medieval Russia. The film follows Andrei Rublev as he passes through a series of poetically linked scenes, gradually emerging as a man struggling to preserve his creative and religious integrity.
Description
Tarkovsky's looking glass is not merely cracked but shattered and we see the jagged, jumbled reflections of its shards, imges of Tarkovsky's childhood mixed with fragments of his adult life--a child's wartime exile, a mother's experience with political terror, the breakup of a marriage, life in a country home--all intermingled with slow-motion dream sequences and poetic chunks of stark newsreels.
6) Nostalghia
Description
Traveling through Italy with an interpreter to research a composer's life, a poet haunted by visions of his home and family in Russia meets a hermit fixated on the spiritual decay of humanity who claims he knows the secret of its salvation.
Series
Criterion collection volume 397
Description
A 12-year orphan boy works for the Soviet Union's Red Army during World War II, undertaking dangerous reconnaissance missions behind enemy lines.
Series
Criterion collection volume 164
Description
Ground control has been receiving strange transmissions from the three remaining residents of the Solaris space station. When cosmonaut and psychologist Kris Kelvin is sent to investigate, he experiences the strange phenomena that afflict the Solaris crew, sending him on a voyage into the darkest recesses of his own consciousness.
Series
Criterion collection volume 176
Description
Ernest Hemingway's simple but gripping short tale "The Killers" is a model of economical storytelling. Two directors adapted it into unforgettably virile features: Robert Siodmak, in a 1946 film that helped define the noir style; and Don Siegel, in a brutal 1964 version that was intended for television but deemed too violent for home audiences and released theatrically instead. The first is poetic and shadowy, the second direct and harsh as daylight,...