John's Favorite Films - The Works of Tarkovsky

There are no answers anymore, only choices –
Stanislaw Lem, Solaris

Andrei Tarkovsky is widely acknowledged as one of the most poetic and mystic film makers; for John O'Donohue, his work was so fundamentally important that he could not single out a particular favourite. When asked, he simply said (in his mischievous way), "I want ALL of Tarkovsky!" A clue to John's appreciation and enjoyment of Tarkovsky's work may be found in John's thoughts about beauty,

"Beauty is never simply in the mind alone. Beauty awakens for us through what we hear, touch taste, scent and see . . . In beauty's presence there is no longer any separation between thought and senses, between heart and soul. Indeed, the experience of beauty confirms the intricate harmony and creative tension of senses and thought."

--- BEAUTY: THE INVISIBLE EMBRACE,
Beauty and the Celtic Imagination: The Balance of the Mind and the Senses

In just seven key films Tarkovsky engaged the senses better than almost any other cinematic artist, in an exploration of spirituality and meaning. 'ANDREI RUBLEV', about a 14th century icon painter, and 'STALKER', about a dystopian science fiction future, are possibly his best known films; they stand alongside works such as 'THE SACRIFICE' – an extraordinary piece about the cost of love and a surreal spiritual journey on the cusp of the world's end, and 'MIRROR', which encapsulates a vision of childhood that manages also to tell much of the history of Russia.

I personally am most taken with 'SOLARIS', one of the most physically beautiful films ever made, about a psychiatrist's investigation into strange goings on in outer space. People on board a massive ship have encountered a presence that appears to grant all their wishes; make all their dreams come true; answer every question. While there is a political dimension to 'SOLARIS', in that it served as a kick in the teeth to the restrictions on freedom of thought at the heart of Soviet structures, this is a film about the fragility of love and the hope of some kind of eternal or eschatological future.

John touches on this theme often in his works. In his introduction to Callings in BENEDICTUS (entitled TO BLESS THE SPACE BETWEEN US in the U.S.), John writes:

From time immemorial it has been one of the deepest longings of the human heart to strain against the erosion of one's life, to find a way of living and being that manages to find some stable ground within time, a place from where something eternal can be harvested from our disappearance. This is what all art strives for: the creating of a living permanence.

In SOLARIS, the psychiatrist is visited by the dream of his dead wife, and offered the opportunity to stay with the unreal dream, or to return to the ambivalence of life lived only in the flesh. Tarkovsky's films are notable for their length, and slow meditative pace. Watching them requires attention, and an open heart. One version of the story told in SOLARIS has a character posing a question that John would have smiled at. When the character asks 'Am I alive or dead?', the answer comes back 'We don't have to think like that anymore.' The last image of the film is one of the most astonishing in cinema, and presents a profoundly moving evocation of the hope that lies at the source of all of searching: that God is not elsewhere, that we are loved, and nothing real is ever lost.

SOLARIS, and Tarkovsky's work in general, propose that the obsession with finding the 'answers' behind the mystery of life often distracts us from experiencing the mystery itself. It is possible to find holes in the statement 'There are no answers anymore, only choices' but I think there is a deep truth within it: To choose God above all else, when the chips are down, when the evidence is against us, to hope for something bigger than ourselves, to muster faith that what we have believed is real, to recall the times when we actually did believe it…well, you can't ask much more from an artist than that.

And the power of Tarkovsky's films is that, at their best, they transport us into a Presence we don't understand, but that we know we need. It's not quite the same thing as a transcendent moment in a cathedral, as the pipe organ swells, the incense intoxicates our senses, and the congregation experiences a moment of one-ness unparalleled elsewhere. But it's not totally different either.

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A Note from Lindaa

I am so very grateful to have the list of John's Favorite Films and to be experiencing them in the company of Gareth's essay's. I have found that the series is opening a way for me to get to know John better than I had a chance to know him while he was in my visible world. It is a tender journey that cradles and comforts the enduring tenderness I feel each day in connection with John's passing.

I watched "Solaris" last week. Had I not had Gareth's essay to provide an alternative view, I would have found it very difficult to reconcile my initial negative reaction to the film with my understanding of John and his work. The gift of Gareth's essay was a shift in my perspective that set me thinking about how John so often called our attention to the wonder of imagination and our connection with the invisible world.

I began finding in John's writing, themes that Tarkovsky also evoked, and that I had not fully grasped while watching the film. For example, SOLARIS issues a challenge to a culture that places ultimate trust in purely (John might say "merely") verifiable, empirical facts. In BEAUTY, John wrote,

Our time is hungry in spirit. In some unnoticed way we have managed to inflict severe surgery on ourselves. We have separated soul from experience, become utterly taken up with the outside world and allowed the interior life to shrink. Like a stream that disappears underground, there remains on the surface only the slightest trickle. When we devote no time to the inner life, we lose the habit of soul. We become accustomed to keeping things at surface level. The deeper questions about who we are and what we are here for visit us less and less. If we allow time for soul, we will come to sense its dark and luminous depth. If we fail to acquaint ourselves with soul, we will remain strangers in our own lives.

--- BEAUTY: THE INVISIBLE EMBRACE,
The Soul as Twilight Threshold

Other places in BEAUTY that illuminated (for me) John's affinity for Tarkovsky's work:

'Teannalach'; and 'The Imagination Sees Through a Thing to the Cluster of Possibilities Which Shrouds It'

I would love to hear from you, and I'm sure Gareth would also enjoy receiving your thoughts and comments about the film(s).

warmly,
Linda Alvarez
Business Manager, John O'Donohue
linda@johnodonohue.com