A dying poet remembers his childhood, his mother, his marriage and the war, in scenes that jump between color, black and white and sepia. His father's poems are read aloud over the images. It has no plot in the usual sense, so watch it like a dream you slowly sort.
At a glance
Mirror is a 1975 drama film directed by Andrei Tarkovsky. This breakdown covers 5 techniques (2 narrative, 1 editing and 2 psychology), each with the scene where you can see it. If you like how it is made, The Conformist uses several of the same techniques.
Telling the story out of order by jumping between time periods. The order you see events in changes how you understand them.
How this film uses it
Memory, dreams and history are cut together without a timeline. A scene from childhood can flow into the poet's adult life without warning. You assemble the story from feelings and images.
Where to see it
The burning barn. The family watches a barn burn in a memory that appears without warning.
Cutting real documentary or archive footage into a fictional story, such as authentic records of wartime atrocities. It grounds the fiction in history and blurs the line between cinema and the record.
How this film uses it
Real newsreel of the Spanish Civil War is cut into the film. It places the poet's private memories inside real history. The shift from fiction to footage is sharp and surprising.
Where to see it
The Spanish newsreel. Footage of the Spanish Civil War appears in a scene with exiled Spanish Loyalist friends.
Pairing the main character with a second character who mirrors them. The double shows what the hero wants, fears or secretly is.
How this film uses it
Margarita Terekhova plays both the poet's mother and his ex-wife. The same face connects the two women in his life. You see how he mixes one with the other.
Where to see it
The mother and the wife. The same actress appears as both women across the film.
Staging dreams, fantasies and imagination as literal scenes. The inner mind becomes visible, whether as wish, fear or creative power.
How this film uses it
Dreams appear as full scenes in black and white. In one, the mother levitates above her bed as a vision of her husband comforts her. The dream shows what she wants and cannot say.
Where to see it
The levitation. Maria floats above her bed in a dream sequence.
Drawing on the filmmaker's own life but keeping it at arm's length, often through a fictional stand-in. The result is precise and unsentimental, and it can question how memory flatters us.
How this film uses it
The adult poet, Aleksei, never shows his face. We hear him but mostly see his memories. The film draws on Tarkovsky's own life, but it keeps a distance from him.
Where to see it
The poet's voice. Tarkovsky's father, Arseny, recites his own poems in voiceover throughout.
Questions
Keep watching
Same director
Same era
