MovieChat Forums > Nostalghia Discussion > Does it help to be religious to enjoy th...

Does it help to be religious to enjoy this film?

posted 10 years ago by jakdstew
2 replies | jump to latest

This was the third Tarkovsky film that I've seen, the others being Stalker and The Sacrifice. With this film, as well as with The Sacrifice, there has been this sort of empty feeling within me while I'm watching. I can admire Tarkovsky's style of filmmaking, but there is something in these two films that doesn't connect with me for whatever reason. I hate to say it, but I honestly found them to be almost unbearably talky. Stalker was also talky, but in my opinion it had a much more interesting premise as well as containing much more tension. Once they arrive in the Zone, everything in that film is terrifying. The conflicts in Nostalghia and The Sacrifice seem to be much more internal, which can be affecting to the viewer (and apparently they are affecting to many people), but I think the viewer has to be able to directly identify with it.

I have the feeling that these films did not do it for me because I am not the religious type. Am I right or is something else altogether?

[–] leopoldfilmmaker 10 years ago

Religious- no, you don't have to be religious. However, you do have to be spiritual. A lot of art requires the viewer to be spiritual.

[–] bertoam 8 years ago

Yes, you might be right, but instead of religious , a better word would be spiritual. Since he always treats the theme of the surch for the self, the sacrifice that has to be made, and the journey of doubts + imagination ( as a priest said to me once : We should not name G......there's only imagination, and a believer is so because he doubts.
Yeh, would help, but no worries, you can get some 'enlightment' every single day, if you havent now but DESIRE it and SEARCH ...Think Stalker..