Andrei Tarkovsky
Andrei Tarkovsky
Andrei Tarkovsky’s intense films, though numbering only seven across his almost quarter decade career, have cemented his place as one of cinema’s master craftsmen. Meditative, intimate, and often opaque, the films lack nothing in compelling narrative nor symbolic density. Those not fond of slower films can still wonder at his meticulous composition, baptized by light. While Tarkovsky’s films are all available for free online, the beauty of his measured images tempt pause, both on the remote and in their absorption by the eye. For his acolytes, cinephiles, and photophiles then, Instant Light: Tarkovsky Polaroids collects sixty of his Polaroids, set in Russia and his exile in Italy.
Clear from the onset is the compatibility between the filmmaker and the equally illustrious instant film, which encourages spontaneity while optimizing light’s texture and radiance. Memory and the vicarious representation of life reoccur as themes Tarkovsky explored in his films, so it is not surprising that the photos put in sharper relief the artistic numen present in the films. Frozen, the images exude atmosphere and, in the frank affection for its subjects, melancholy.
