Mirror: The Film Companion

At the centre of Tarkovsky's oeuvre, _Mirror_ is his most complex and autobiographical film. It stretches the viewer by moving without apparent effort between past, present and imagined realities, in a series of episodes which observe neither plot nor overt logic. The film reconstructs and records iconic memories and deep emotional impressions in the life of an individual, a nation and an era. Audience reaction to 'Mirror' was overwhelming and it came to represent a watershed in many people's lives. It also occasioned Tartovsky's first open dialogue with his viewers, as letters poured in to convince him of the importance and need for his films. It remains to this day most Russians' favourite Tarkovsky film.