The Mirror

""Mirror, a new film by Andrei Tarkovsky, the controversial and unorthodox Soviet director, is delighting, puzzling, disaping serious Muscovite movie enthusiasts. (...) It could increase [Tarkovsky's] audience and his prestige in the West, if the Soviet authorities permit the film to be shown abroad." 

"The smallest details (a stammering child, the wrinkle in the turned page of a book) stick like burrs, and we are left to wonder if any director has delved with more modesty and honesty into the heartbreak of the past." 

"'The Mirror' can be difficult for audiences raised on the mainstream movies of Hollywood. (...) No tidy resolutions, no easy steps from here to there. But what The Mirror lacks in simple logic it makes up for in satisfying emotions." 

"Tarkovsky goes for the great white whale of politicised art -- no less than a history of his country in this century seen in terms of the personal -- and succeeds. (...) Unique its form, unique its vision." 

"It is a startling piece of film-making, floating free of the conventional demands of period and narrative (...) It's simply inspired." 

"'Mirror' is much copied (...) Eschewing time and plot for flotsam and psyche is much harder than Tarkovsky makes it look (…) Rating: ★★★★★ (out of 5)" 

"Poetry in motion (…) Rating: ★★★★ (out of 5)"