Random, but not really at all.

Mirror is a film that seems to have enormous potential in influencing films in the future. As many students in class watched the dream scene where the mother figure is washing her hair, various whispers of “the Ring”, “that looks like the Ring”, were heard around the room. It would not be surprising at all to hear that the directors of The Ring used that scene as inspiration for their own film. The Mirror had an oddly creepy air about it at certain points, such as the one afore-mentioned, that could cause a suspense or horror filmmaker to feel rather motivated.

At the same time, however, the film was also quite sad. The decaying relationship between the colored-screen son and his colored-screen mother was something that felt dismal, and the development of that theme was something that stuck out to me throughout the film. In the average modern movie, plot is the glue keeping all the scenes connected, but within Mirror, themes seemed to be the predominate sticking factor. The theme of the mother-son relationship, the absent father, the significance of mirrors as ways to view things from different perspectives, and war were all ever constant in the film. The article, Sculpting in Time, informed me that the film was partially based on Tarkovsky’s childhood, and this helped me understand the use of the varying themes. The themes that stuck out were definite points that Tarkvosky desired to get across. Prevailing events from his childhood that he desired the viewer to see and even understand perhaps.

Out of all the scenes in the film, the beginning scene was the most striking scene in the film. None of the scenes in Tarkovsky’s Mirror are random, and I felt that this one was especially not so. When the woman helps the boy learn how to get rid of his speech impediment, she clears his speech so that he is easily understood. She enables him to speak loud and clear. It reminded me of The Odyssey. Homer invokes the help of the muse before he begins his tale, because the muse will help him tell his tale at his fullest potential. It seemed that Tarkovsky showed the clip at the beginning of the movie to represent what he desired out of the film. He wanted his voice to be heard loud and clear, and he was invoking his muse in his own abstract way.