The Sacrifice (1986)
Directed by Andrey Tarkovskiy

Film Review

Andrei Tarkovsky's seventh and final film is, arguably, his most profound and unsettling.  It is work of rugged and sublime poetry that compels us to look deep into the abyss and lament our failings, both as individuals and as a species, yet, paradoxically, it contains within it a message of hope and assures us that the future may not be as grim as we might suppose.  By the time Tarkovsky had completed work on the film he knew that his own days were numbered - in fact he would die from an untreatable lung cancer within a few months of the film's release in 1986.  (He lived along enough to see it honoured at the Cannes Film festival, where it won him his second Jury Grand Prize.)  Although he had not intended it to be such when he began it, The Sacrifice became Tarkovsky's testamentary film - an eloquent summation of his work and a final succinct statement of his deepest felt views on the nature of humanity.

The Sacrifice differs markedly from the director's previous films, more so in its form than in its typically Tarkovskian themes appertaining to humanity's raw essence.  Whilst it has a few impressionistic digressions - most memorably two stark and frighteningly eerie dream sequences - and employs visual symbolism throughout, these are far less apparent than in earlier work.  With its muted palette (colour reduced almost to monochrome for most of the film) and minimalist, almost theatrical staging, The Sacrifice is much nearer in style to the works of Tarkovsky's equally revered contemporary, Ingmar Bergman.

This was perhaps inevitable given that the film was made in Sweden, with two of Bergman's most important collaborators - the actor Erland Josephson and cinematographer Sven Nykvist - lending their fulsome support to the project.  Tarkovsky's careful imitation of Bergman appears deliberate - the scene in which the main character and his entourage fall to pieces on hearing the news that WWIII has suddenly broken out could easily have been scripted and staged by Bergman - but what is remarkable is how, in incorporating Bergman's familiar tropes into his own distinctive asthetic, Tarkovsky manages to create something even more beguiling and disturbing.  Even in his unique body of work, The Sacrifice stands out as an exceptional piece of film art.
 
In common with the director's other great films - Solaris and Stalker in particular - The Sacrifice is a masterfully woven parable that captivates the eye and stimulates the intellect.  It begins slowly, with a single shot lasting almost ten minutes, filmed entirely in long shot, the camera panning across a bleak Scandinavian setting with balletic ease, but with this strange opening showing an old man and a little boy planting a tree together the film at once exerts a powerful hold over the spectator.  It is an alluring poem that can be interpreted in whatever way you will, and this is what makes it Tarkovsky's most profound and fascinating creation.

In common with much of the director's work, The Sacrifice has a substantial auto-biographical element, the central character Alexander (played with exquisite subtlety and power by Erland Josephson) mirroring Tarkovsky not only in his physical appearance and temperament, but also in his tortured concerns for mankind and striving for the deeper truths of existence.  Alexander's pact with God - to give up everything he has so that the world can avoid obliteration - resonates with the director's desire to make a success of his career after turning his back on the Soviet Union.  Central to Tarkovsky's thesis is the idea that, for it to be meaningful, sacrifice must be voluntary and it must hurt.  There is, to coin a phrase, no gain without pain.

On the face of it, Alexander's willed-for sacrifice is monstrous and equates to the Jewish patriarch Abraham's willingness to slaughter his own son Isaac to show his obedience to his God.  But who wouldn't make such an extreme vow when faced with the prospect of impending global annihilation?  In the end, Alexander is spared a father's ultimate loss and is merely robbed of his reason and his material possessions - but the point is made.  The sacrifice is more than a token gesture, it is a sacred rite wherby one human being voluntarily gives up something he cherishes in order to restore balance to a troubled universe.

This leads us to perhaps the most obvious interpretation of the film (one that naturally aligns with Tarkovsky's own anti-materialistic and pacifistic views) - namely, that the only way by which humanity can avoid the Apocalypse is to collectively will things to be different, by rejecting en masse those destructive influences (materialism, nationalism, militarism) that appeal to our baser instincts but make the survival of the species impossible.  Through the tortured disintegration of his alter ego, Tarkovsky makes his case with dazzling lucidity and asserts his confidence that mankind will, in the end, make the right choice, painful though it might be.

Tarkovsky's extraordinarily refined poetic instincts, as ever, prevent him from allowing even this logical interpretation of his film seem too obvious.  The director's tendency to obfuscate even the simplest of ideas and force us to reflect on the film from multiple angles is apparent in the ambiguity of his central protagonist.  Alexander is as opaque and multi-faceted as any other fictional character you'd care to name, and we can never be sure whether he is a willing martyr, a latterday Faust or merely a deluded fool.  The connection with Prince Myshkin in Fyodor Dostoyevsky's The Idiot is easily made, and in the film's final cataclysmic sequence it suddenly dawns on us that Alexander may not even be sane.

In fact, as we replay the events of the film back in our heads after this scene (which manages to be both horrific and hilarious with its Bunuelian undertones) it becomes apparent that what we have witnessed is not one man's heroic act of atonement but rather a skewed fantasy oozing out of a mind collapsing under the weight of a crushing exaggerated pessimism.  How else are we to account for the ease with which supernatural elements blend into the narrative - the idea that sexual congress with a supposed witch can prevent a nuclear exchange?  Is Alexander really the man who saved the world, or is he just a worn-out misanthropic intellectual at the end of his tether, imagining the worst and then casting himself in the role of humanity's saviour - the man who stopped Armageddon?  Andrei Tarkovsky's last film is a canny but cruel enigma, one that encompasses our deepest fears and our most fervent hopes.

Film Synopsis

Alexander is a man in his early sixties who leads a tranquil existence with his wife Adelaide, stepdaughter Marta and young son in a large house by the sea on a remote island.  A former actor, now turned critic and lecturer, Alexander bemoans the way the world is going and has scant confidence in what the future holds for mankind.  On his birthday, he plants a tree in a remote spot with his son, whom he refers to as Little Man.  That evening, whilst enjoying a convivial birthday party with his wife and two friends - the local postman Otto and the family doctor Victor - news comes through on the radio that war has broken out and that the end is inevitable.  Overcome with despair, Alexander confides in God that he will give up everything, including his beloved wife and son, if the impending catastrophe can be avoided. 

Otto then tells the ex-actor that there is one last hope.  If he goes to his maid Maria, who is apparently a witch, and sleeps with her the nuclear holocaust will be averted.  Seeing this as his one chance, Alexander slips away from his house and makes his way to Maria's isolated homestead.  With the sound of jet fighters roaring overhead, a prelude to the imminent nuclear conflict, the old man breaks down in front of his maid.  Maria is moved to tears by Alexander's obvious distress and, to console him, she allows him to make love to her.  The next morning, Alexander awakes to find the world back as it was.  It seems that God has heeded his prayer.  All that remains is for him to keep his part of the bargain...