■ No director is more overlooked for the radicalism of his films than Andrei Tarkovsky. Everyone opens their mouths and says, " The excellence of the poetic images, and as for "Sacrifice", ideological interpretations such as "message against the nuclear age" and "salvation" are now standard, including the depiction of nuclear war and the nuclear accident at Chernobyl following the film's release.
■ Of course, I think it is important to think about human survival from an environmental perspective based on such an interpretation, but we should be aware that this is already far removed from Tarkovsky's work. So, what is being talked about there is peaceful ideology, and not the inherence of Tarkovsky's works at all. In other words, why not try to interpret Tarkovsky's "work"? Let us consider "Sacrifice" with this point in mind.
■ Alexander's line at the beginning of the film, "In the beginning was the Word," is, of course, from the New Testament Gospel of John ( 1~3 ). Next ( 4 ), "like a fish" is based on the fact that the fish was a symbol of the early Christians and meant Jesus ( there is also an episode in the Gospel of John concerning Jesus' fish ). In other words, it suggests that Alexander is identifying his son with Christ. This is of great significance in the film, and so I will mention it at the end.
■ The scene where his wife and doctor Victor come while Alexander is talking to his son ( 5~10 ).
■ We should not overlook Adelaide's line "My boy" ( 11 ) and Alexander's following line " Why My, He is Ours ?" ( 12 ) in this scene. Perhaps the wife is unconsciously indicating that her son is not related to Alexander. It is more likely that Alexander, knowing that his son is not related to him by blood ( which would mean that someone else is the father ), is referring to his son as "ours" in the sense of a foster parent. This interpretation will later be relevant to the meaning of Alexander's intercourse with Maria.
■ Alexander goes on and on in his monologue ( 13~24 ). But we should not think that these scenes are uselessly long and boring, because there are hints for interpreting this film hidden in these scenes. If we take Tarkovsky's explanation seriously and think of this sequence as Alexander's criticism of civilization, we will not see the essence of this film at all.
■ Scene 16 ~ 23. shows that Alexander himself is aware that he is a man who can do nothing but talk. In other words, for him, keeping to talk is the alternative action to not being able to do something. By keeping to talk, he is able to distract himself from "the Something to do".
■ So what exactly is the Something to do? It does not mean that he have nothing to do, because he is a critic and so on, although he is no longer a stage actor. He is unable to act Something ( some people may understand what he is unable to do when I say this ). He is struggling to take a step forward to the real act ( for him ), which is not talking. Losing this point, we will not be able to understand this film at all.
■ In this scene, Alexander's son approaches him from behind to play with him as he continues his monologue. With too much momentum, the son hits his face on the back of Alexandre's head, causing his nosebleed. Alexandre, looking at his son's nose bleeding face, faints and falls down from the impact of the collision ( Scene 30. ).
■ Pay attention to scenes 29 and 30 and the following scenes 31 ~ 34. Because this is where the core of the film begins to move. The core of the film is none other than Alexander's delusion. Many people overlook these scenes and are unable to interpret the rest of the story.
■ There are some points to keep in mind in these scenes in which Alexandre faints and enters into "the delusional world". One is that scene 29, in which Alexander sees his son with a bleeding nose ( which represents Alexander's own gaze ), implies that his delusion involves a return to his childhood. Second, black-and-white scenes 31-34 show that a catastrophic event for such a young child occurred during his childhood, whether it was war, terrorism, or disaster, we do not know. And importantly, his delusion lasts at least until he wakes up on the couch after the intercourse scene with Maria.
■ Well, below is the problematic scene ( 35~46 ) in which Alexander has sex with Maria ( but probably not to finish ). What is problematic is not that the sex scene is unethical ( because it is not directly controversial ), but that we take seriously the suspicious logic ( the postman's story ) that Alexander must have sex with Maria in order to save the world from nuclear war. If we think that is really the summary of the film, we will have to lose sight of the essence of the film. In other words, that is equal to thinking nothing about the film.
■ Looking closely, we notice that the Alexander looks strange. It is not that he is self-deprecating for daring to sex ( as most people interpret it ) in order to save the world, but rather that he is suggestive of passive desire to hold me please , in other words, of " impotence" that he is unable to sex actively . This is the "Something" that was bothering him because he was unable to act. However, this cannot be dismissed as a mere delusion story of an impotent man. This is because Tarkovsky has done the logicalization of more than its simple story. I'll talk about that later, but let's continue with the intercourse scene.
■ Beginning with Maria's oft-repeated line, "Don't be afraid of anything. it's all right. it's all right ", Scenes 41 - 46 clearly show Alexander's fear of sex ( that he is unable to sex ). How should we interpret the strangeness of this Maria-led sex scene ? Let us consider the following scenes as well.
■ This black-and-white flashback just after the sex scene is a continuation of scenes 31 - 34 which show Alexander's delusional world after fainting. This allows us to speculate on how his delusional world appeared.
■ I pointed out already that his delusional world is return to boyhood and the experience of catastrophic events in there ( Scenes 31 - 34 ). These experiences can be summed up as boyhood experiences, but by this scene 47-52, Another experience, that is, Fear of Women that his infantile fixation on Mother would cause Alexander to fail to have sexual desire for Women who is not Mother ( which resulted in his inability to sex ), is added to them, and literally Complex ( the original meaning of the psychoanalytic term "complex" ) appears.
■ To repeat, in his delusional world, some catastrophic event in his childhood ( war, disaster, terrorism, etc. ) and Fear of Mother are "short-circuited" to form the source of his Complex.
■ And it is this short-circuiting that makes possible the absurd theory that having sex with Maria will bring peace to the world. To explain in detail, it is to overcome the trauma that appeared short-sightedly by acting out. In this case, "acting out" means nothing more than having sex. In the flashback scene 52, we can see that his mother looks exactly like Maria and that Alexander sees the image of his mother in Maria. Therefore, by having sex with Maria, Alexander is trying to break free from his Fixation on Mother and his Fear of Women, and "saving the world" is the logic of psychic externalization, which means that he has overcome these obstacles.
■ But... Alexander could not break his mother's spell in his delusional world ( that is, he could not sex after all ). We can see that from his line " I can't... I can't... ". There is something weird in his mother's voice that echoes just before he wakes up on the sofa. But scenes 53-54, in which his mother's voice is accompanied with Leonardo da Vinci's "The Adoration of the Three Eastern Doctors" in the background, suggest that another interpretation is about to appear.
■ Now, it is necessary to mention a scene in Alexander's delusion where his daughter Marta seduces Dr. Victor, with whom she is familiar. It is a short scene in which Marta, in underwear, seduces Viktor, but Viktor scurries away. We cannot determine whether the Act actually took place there, but we can speculate that Alexander's fear that even his daughter Marta possessed witchery as Woman is projected and that Victor is deeply connected to Alexander's family ( wife, daughter, and son... ). Thinking about Alexander is impotence, we naturally understand the unspoken relationship between his family and Viktor. This relationship is hinted at in Scenes 11-12, by it's composition Victor stands between Alexander and his wife. And then there are the wife's lines and Alexander's response to them.
■ Although it is not clearly described in this film, so we can only speculate, at least Alexander is trying to establish Symbolic connection ( not blood-relation ) with his son, apart from the "Victor - wife - daughter" trio that excludes Alexander from the family relationship. In other words, he was trying to become Symbolic Father, even though he was not related to his son by blood. He was trying to talk to his son, to keep talking to him, to leave "Word" in his son's mind.
■ And the Word were nothing more than Gift from Alexander to his son. However, the gift lacked "sacrifice." Gifts involve sacrifice" which is the line of the postman who presented Alexander with the map, so Alexander was willing to make the sacrifice by clearing up the trauma of his boyhood, in other words, by overcoming his carnal desires. Because of this sequence , it can be interpreted that Alexander wanted to give "Word" as Gift to his son. We should never misunderstand that he sacrificed himself to save the world. And the often-used interpretation ( which many critics have taken, unfortunately ) that he burned his house as sacrifice to fulfill his promise to God because he had sex with Mary and brought peace to the world makes no sense at all.
■ Alexander hides from his family and sets fire to his home while they are gone. It can hardly be interpreted that he made the sacrifice to save his family and the world. That's exactly what the family would be in trouble for.
■ A family tries to get their father, who is acting insane, into the ambulance. Alexander runs away to avoid being caught, and his family chases after him. Though I don't know if Tarkovsky intended it, this scene has a comedic tone that may have made some of you laugh.
■ This story is basically Alexander's attempt to resolve his trauma in his delusional world, but it ultimately fails, and he chooses the worst possible acting-out by burning down his home in the real world. As written, the story tends to lean toward the common psychoanalytic theme of trauma and overcoming it, but surprisingly, Tarkovsky manages to rewrite the story differently by connecting the biblical theme through the mediator of "Son".
■ What we are talking the Bible here is none other than the Gospel of John in the New Testament. It is the one in which Alexander says in the movie, "In the beginning was the Word." But why is the Gospel of John mentioned? For that we need to consider the special position of the Gospel of John in the New Testament.
■ The singularity of the Gospel of John is that it rewrites a mysterious birth of Jesus, the supposed Son of God, which was often problematic. Previously, Jesus' divinity was guaranteed by Mary's virgin conception, a very unlikely birth story ( Gospel of Matthew and Gospel of Luke ). In this sight, Alexander's failure to have sex with Mary can be interpreted as an impossibility that was destined to fail from the very beginning.
■ However, if we try to understand the story about Alexander with the subsidiary line of virgin conception, we run into the problematic of how to understand the "real son." Surely it is not possible that the son was born of virgin conception.
■ What is needed here is the singularity of the Gospel of John. To put it simply, the Gospel of John break away with the idea of the guarantee of divinity through the physical body ( virgin conception ). What appears instead is the Symbolic of Word ( the first half of John's Gospel ). The Symbolic of Word has rewritten the beginning of the World ( in a different way from Genesis ).
■ What must be understood in here is that the divinity of Jesus is not guaranteed by his nativity, but by Word. This is because Word is not the property of anyone in particular, but Word itself conceives divinity in the sense that it is universal and comes to everyone equally. There, Jesus is sent from God and is the bringer of "God of Word" ( not Word of God ).
■ Then, birth and lineage are no longer problematic. No, even if birth and lineage are problematic, anyone who listens to Word can become "Son" of God. This is the meaning of what Alexander, who embodies the "importance / impotence" of Word, kept saying to his son. It is in the setting of this role of Alexander's "impotence and importance" that Tarkovsky bets his philosophical intentions. It can be said that Tarkovsky knew that Word is Powerless and Impotent in the face of tragic reality, and yet, precisely because of this, Word combines Important Fragility that sprouts in people Silent Divinity ( Alexander's son remained mute until the last scene ).
■ This staggering rollout that worst acting-out of setting fire on his home due to Alexander's delusional world leads to his son's divinity is artistic prowess as only Tarkovsky could have achieved. The view of world , in which intertwining of poetic visuals, obscene delusional world, and Christian motifs, shows Tarkovsky's philosophy of the inseparability of sacredness and violence. It is well known that Danish filmmaker Lars von Trier pays homage to Tarkovsky, it is because he, who is often accused of violent films, perceives and sympathizes with Tarkovsky's hidden essence ( sacredness and violence ).
