The great filmmaker and amateur stand-up comedian Ingmar Bergman once said of a particular director “[Andrei] Tarkovsky is the greatest of them all” – and while these are certainly enormous words coming from a director who is one of the very few that can legitimately make claim to being amongst the greatest cinematic artists of his time, they’re also very true. Bergman was certainly right about the fact that Tarkovsky was a brilliant filmmaker, someone who made an indelible impression on cinema with only seven films, all of which are towering masterpieces in their own right. Like many great directors, there isn’t one film that is defined as being his masterpiece – but if we were to mention one that regularly comes up as being perhaps his most beloved, it would be Mirror (Russian: Zerkalo or Зеркало). There are a number of reasons why this film is considered to be Tarkovsky’s masterwork – not only is it perhaps his most innovative creative achievement, it also is a deeply personal statement, a work of fiction that shatters boundaries of what can be told through the visual form, and a powerful manifesto on the intimacies of the human mind and the influence every experience in our life has on us. It is as poetic as a film like this can possibly be, and through the audacious technique, and the director’s assured and direct vision, he crafts a masterful portrayal of childhood and memory, and most certainly one of the greatest films of the 1970s.

Memory is an interesting concept and has often been explored in any number of ways. This is primarily the focus of Mirror, which takes on the appearance of a semi-autobiographical work of the director, with Tarkovsky delving deeply into his own past to deliver a profoundly moving story of his early life, doing so in a way that is often rarely ever attempted. Intricate but beautiful in its own audacious way, this is a film that is profoundly unwavering in its dedication to portraying an ordinary life in a way that isn’t only fascinating, but also extremely unforgettable. Tarkovsky’s status in film history as one of the most complex but brilliant filmmakers to ever work in the medium is not ill-earned – and when watching Mirror, you’ll understand precisely why he is not only so deeply revered but also why he is such an intimidating figure, someone whose films are beautiful but impenetrable, and even when venturing into the realm of something as simple as his own memories, Tarkovsky is unflinching in his belief that cinema is not an art form that merely exists to entertain, but also to challenge conventions and defy categorization. Perhaps his most accessible work, Mirror is still a bundle of awe-inspiring narrative entanglements that may be sometimes difficult but is never anything less than overwhelmingly hypnotic and effortlessly gorgeous, both narratively and visually.

Mirror is an anomaly of a film because technically, it is a film in which nothing really happens. Yet, it feels so complex and rich with ideas and concepts, it starts to resemble something entirely different than one would expect from the general underlying story. Told over three distinct periods in the life of the protagonist Aleksei (who is very clearly an alter-ego of Tarkovsky), following him in his early childhood before the Second World War, his adolescence after the war has ended, and his final days as an adult, slowly coming to terms with his impending fate. It follows the protagonist (who is hardly shown on screen, mostly manifesting as a voice) and his relationship with various people, including his mother and wife (both played by Margarita Terekhova) and several other characters that weave their way throughout the young man’s life over the course of these three periods. We see how experiences and encounters shape an individual, teaching them about the world and showing them the depths of existence. Structured as a non-linear storyline, we are presented with scattered moments throughout the life of Aleksei, all of which come together to form a fascinating portrait of a young artist and his formative experiences.

In terms of the structure, Mirror is highly-inventive, and truly innovative especially for the era in which this film was made. Unlike more recent films, the non-linear storyline of his film was almost unheard of, remaining firmly within the realm of more experimental underground cinema rather than bold, masterful works of the arthouse, as was the case for Tarkovsky, whose work was revered, despite its immense difficulty at times. The film takes the approach of disregarding cohesion and rather opting for something a lot more creatively bohemian. Presented as individual snapshots of the life of the protagonist, the film is not shown in order, and there is a lack of a direct, coherent storyline – in the hands of anyone else, it is very likely Mirror would’ve been pretentious at best, and an utterly convoluted disaster at worst. Yet, with Tarkovsky’s assured hand guiding this film, and his incredible ability to evoke even the most subtle emotions through this story, this film becomes a resounding success. It is less a film about particular events in the life of a person, and more of a mosaic of moments, put together in ways that would be inconsequential had they not clearly been structured in such a way that when appearing next to one another, they tell a story broader than what is shown on screen. Tarkovsky’s biggest strength, both in Mirror and in his other films, was his ability to find meaning where other artists cannot. Every moment in Mirror is small – some of them are heartwrenching, others beautifully triumphant (and surprisingly, there were even a few minor moments of delicate humour) – but each work together in unison to create a film that doesn’t necessarily want to tell us one story, but to assert our own experiences onto these moments that may appear specific, but the underlying concepts – life, love, family, conflict – are all extremely resonant.

Reflection is perhaps the most important underlying theme in this film, and Tarkovsky makes that blatantly clear (the film is called Mirror after all), and throughout it, we are shown various scenes that include mirrors or reflections, which is an overt (but not heavy-handed) way of conveying the idea that this is a film about revisiting the past. Tarkovsky, throughout the entirety of Mirror, reflects on his own experiences, presenting them in a fragmented narrative that deftly avoids trite nostalgia through a certain bleak presentation (yet without ever being too cold or arid), jumping between scenes and periods in a way that represents memory – a continuous stream-of-consciousness approach imbues Mirror with a certain resonance, a deeply melancholic sense of approaching ourselves and using our own past as a way of building towards whatever future lays ahead. There isn’t anything particularly special about Aleksei and his family – in fact, the protagonist is never physically seen, and even when he is included in a scene (through his voice), the content of the conversations he has with other characters are almost dreadfully banal – yet, there is meaning here, because even putting aside the clear correlation between Tarkovsky’s life and the storyline of the film (which is almost impossible to achieve, especially when both of the director’s parents appear in this film in some capacity), we see Mirror as nothing more than a steadfast exploration of the human condition, a complex investigation into everyday life, shown to us through three different time periods, in which certain events occur that would otherwise go unnoticed in ordinary life, but are here repurposed as pivotal moments in the life of just an ordinary man. It takes a lot to make something so sparing in terms of story and still produce a brilliant masterwork of semi-autobiographical fiction, but if anyone was going to do it, it would be Tarkovsky.

Mirror is an astonishing achievement. It is perhaps the most personal of all Tarkovsky’s films, and also his most manageable in terms of length and scope, so it is the perfect entry point for all who are intimidated by the maestro’s technique. It is gorgeously filmed as well – scenes alternate between muted but peaceful colour, and stark and arid black-and-white, which give the film a unique aesthetic that, much like the story, is impossible to pin down, flowing in a way that is almost unprecedented. Mirror is a film that has a great deal of emotional resonance, and the way Tarkovsky explores this story, with nuance and grace and without ever venturing into the realm of the misanthropic or the bitter is exceptional, especially in scenes where it would be far easier to deride, such as the military training he was forced to undergo as a child, which is shown with a certain empathy that would have not been possible had the director not fully committed himself to pursue honesty above everything else. It is a film presented in a way that is minimalistic, but meaningful, and considering this film hails from a director known for his almost nihilistic approach to existential issues, the lush thematic content, which works alongside the fascinating narrative structure, creates a hypnotic manifesto on existence, whereby the innermost beauty of life is presented in gorgeous but meaningful moments that come together to form an overwhelmingly spellbinding tapestry of the human condition. It is a film that will leave you in complete awe, and most likely will prove that Tarkovsky’s position as one of the most influential filmmakers of all time is not only appropriate, its incredibly true. Mirror is undeniably one of the director’s most brilliant works, and amongst the most mesmerizing films of its era, and one that will not soon be forgotten by anyone who ventures into the labyrinthine mind of Andrei Tarkovsky, and his unquestionable directorial brilliance.