![]() While walking in the woods one day with his apprentice Foma, Andrei brings up religion and gives us his interpretation of Jesus’s crucifixion, and we see this passion play being reenacted on a snowy landscape. ![]() The third episode, “The Passion According To Andrei,” is exactly what the title promises. Andrei’s two apostles respond with jealousy, but while Daniil eventually repents, Kirill storms away in frustration, giving up art and any search for enlightenment. His lack of humility backfires on him when, sometime later, Theophanies sends a messenger announcing his apprentice only for it to be Andrei instead. By this time, Andrei has started to become the most well-known of the trio, so Kirill, out of spite, agrees on the condition that Theophanies make this announcement publicly, as a way of showing up Andrei. Theophanies offers to make Kirill his apprentice for an upcoming fresco he is painting in Moscow. Kirill comes upon the workshop of the renowned Theophanies and the two form a connection. The second episode, “Theophanes the Greek,” is our first real introduction to artwork and the life of a painter. The jester’s creations are an inverse of what Andrei creates, and it shows what a disconnect Andrei has with the commoners he is to proselytize his artwork to. Andrei observes this mini rise-and-fall of a celebrity and how little impact it ultimately has on the villagers before the three monks are soon off on their way again. ![]() Eventually soldiers come in and arrest him, brutally beating him, destroying his instrument, all to the indifference of the villagers. The jester is profane and mocks the state and the church. They are wandering from their monastery to Moscow and, being caught in a storm, take shelter in a barn where a group of villagers are being entertained by a jester. For them, the creation of art and the interpretation/preaching of faith are one in the same. The first episode, “The Jester,” introduces us to Andrei Rublev and his two fellow monk-painters (and apostles), Daniil and Kirill. The balloonist is an early prototype for Andrei himself. But like Icarus, his flight does not last long before he comes crashing down to Earth, surrounded by horses. He is able to just escape an angry mob from storming the church, and loses himself in the escape of flight. The prologue tells an apparently unrelated anecdote about a medieval monk in Russia in the 1400’s harnessing himself to a prototypical hot-air balloon off a church rooftop. ![]() For this rewatch, I viewed each episode on its own over a series of eight nights, so that I could really take in what was going on in each one. Because of this, the pacing is very untraditional, the content feels dense, and I always felt it made more sense to critique it as a miniseries rather than a feature. Some of them are only 15 minutes long, others go longer than 50. Rather than a traditional biopic of Andrei Rublev’s life, we get loose episodes. Tarkovsky’s second film is difficult to critique. ![]()
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