The movie Robert Eggers calls “completely mind-blowing”
The films of Robert Eggers are true marvels in their own right. In less than a decade, Eggers has established himself as one of the most impressive filmmakers of contemporary cinema since the release of his debut feature in 2015, the horror movie The Witch, starring Anya Taylor-Joy.
From there, Eggers continued to deliver his cinematic vision, which leans heavily into folklore and mythology. His sophomore effort, The Lighthouse, starring Robert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe, was nothing short of astounding, while 2022’s The Northman was one of the most visually enticing films in recent memory.
While Eggers’ films have amazed, shocked, and inspired so many cinema fans throughout his career so far, there look to be a few filmmakers that play a significant role in the director’s personal life. He once ran through his five favourite films in a feature with Rotten Tomatoes and drew attention to a Russian classic.
It’s Andrei Tarkovsky’s 1966 biopic Andrei Rublev, and Eggers began his discussion of the film by noting the correct way to pronounce its title. “Okay. Andrei Rublev, spelled ‘Rublev’ but pronounced ‘Rublov’,” the director said. “It’s because we don’t use the Cyrillic alphabet.”
With that cleared up, Eggers explained his love for Tarkovsky, widely considered one of the greatest filmmakers to come out of Eastern Europe. “I really do love Tarkovsky’s Mirror as well,” he said. “But the last act, or the last movement of Andrei Rublev is probably just the best thing in cinema history. That bell-casting sequence is just so powerful.”
Eggers then moved on to compare Andrei Rublev to one of his other favourite films, 1982’s Fanny and Alexander by Ingmar Bergman. He noted: “In some ways, it’s kind of the same thing that Fanny and Alexander does where you’re not even sure who Andrei Rublev is for quite a while the first time you watch the movie, and this is the episode that makes sense together and works together [in a film that doesn’t have] this super linear, aggressive plot.”
Andrei Rublev is based on the life of the 15th Century Russian religious iconography painter of the same name. It stars Anatoly Solonitsyn and portrays a realistic view of Russia in the medieval period. Some consider Solaris and Stalker to be Tarkovsky’s best films, but for Eggers, it’s his 1966 drama.
The director concluded: “The last movement is very linear, that is incredibly cathartic once you’ve been marinated in this world. It really knocks you out. But in general, the movie is so well-staged and beautiful and stunning and inspiring. It’s completely mind-blowing.”
Check out the trailer for Andrei Rublev below.
