Nostalghia: Sickeningly Beautiful Sights
Summer 2017
Jamie Mendonça

“I am a bit worried as I feel like I am on holiday.” ANDREI TARKOVSKY

I must state that I’m not convinced any film made me, so I propose that Andrei Tarkovsky’s Nostalghia corrected me (cinematically at least). The transition process was triggered by an impulse purchase of the film many years ago. I didn’t watch it for a long time due to ‘not quite being in the mood for this just yet’. I think I knew what was coming. The same went for Wild Strawberries; a strong contender for the subject of this piece.

“My discovery of Tarkovsky’s first film was like a miracle.” INGMAR BERGMAN

As for the film itself; well it’s apparently about some Russian poet in Italy researching some Russian composer. These surface details are of little interest, yet I do resist exploring its hidden depths as I worry it will taint my memory of the film and worse: intellectualise it. I wonder if my devotion to Nostalghia is in fact based on nostalgia? Is there a desire to return to a former state (pun intended), or indeed to the moment of discovery when the idea of cinema as an art-form was revealed as being unequivocally true?

Upon discovering Andrei’s writings, I learned how during childhood his mother suggested​ he read War and Peace. He concluded that courtesy of Mr Tolstoy, he could never revert to junk. And so it goes that with compliments of Mr Tarkovsky, I’m eternally cursed. But profoundly grateful. I like to con myself that I don’t need to watch the film anymore as the images (and beyond) are so utterly ingrained; but it’s simply untrue. The film is always a new film for me and I feel hugely content that I’ll never master it.

“Art is very jealous. Very jealous. You must look for it at home.” TONINO GUERRA

Andrei, like his protagonist, was extremely homesick during this particular time in life. The documentary Tempo di Viaggio (Voyage in Time) is a crucial and revealing piece of work, which details the informal pre-production of Nostalghia; consisting essentially of Andrei and Tonino Guerra (co-writer) existing together for a short while in Italy, wrapped up in what I perceive as a deep sense of melancholy.

They discuss the impossibility of translation; a major theme of the finished work. I’m often haunted by the thought that I’ll never truly experience certain works in different languages and must rely on the assistance of a third party. I once left a cinema having been blown away by a particular contemporary film, only to overhear someone saying the subtitles were terrible. I felt like an idiot. But then again, what about absolute truth?