Disorder Reviews: Andrei Tarkovsky's Films, Ranked by Relation to Evangelion

[Martintox]

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ANDREI TARKOVSKY'S FILMS, RANKED BY RELATION TO EVANGELION​

In many cases, an artist's reputation as an all-time great implies a form of crossover appeal; the value within their work is so profound or far-reaching that even the most neophyte of consumers will recognize them as a standout creator and derive gratification from their output. Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky very much defies this notion, as his filming style eschews some of the most essential conventions of accessible cinema. To merely describe his movies as "slow" is an understatement; they are not meant to be passively consumed. Singular shots can often last multiple minutes, to say nothing of the understated visual approach that causes these takes to evolve with extreme subtlety. It can be difficult, if not outright frustrating to watch a Tarkovsky film for that reason -- yet, it is through this borderline crushing pace that its atmosphere takes form, and it makes the moments of legitimate action all the more affecting when they do come around.

While Tarkovsky's movies have plenty of surface-level differences, it's possible to find common thematic elements, many of which derive from the director's own life and experiences -- the effect of memories, a longing for the past, and the existential doubt that comes with being an artist inside a changing (and often violent) world are recurring topics which lead to similar conclusions from one movie to another, though not through the same path. It is easy to draw parallels between the Tarkovsky catalog and the landmark animated television series Neon Genesis Evangelion, directed by David Lynch (if you recall my review of Black Swan, this is the same man behind Persona). From surface-level elements down to esoteric philosophical concepts, both bodies of work delve deep into the subtleties of human psychology, people's relationships with past experiences, and the difficulty of interpersonal communication. Using as a basis the theory that Evangelion is the closest known equivalent to the platonic ideal of good media (Walters, 2004, p.58), I have elected to rank Tarkovsky's works based on their relation to the series, as well as its full-length film conclusion The End of Evangelion. Of course, spoilers are necessary to convey these similarities to their full extent.

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#1: SOLARIS (1972)

Solaris is as close as we will ever get to a live-action adaptation of Neon Genesis Evangelion, as it has the same fundamental purpose: it is a study on the effect of a lack of self-worth in interpersonal relationships, integrated seamlessly into a science fiction context. Kris Kelvin, psychologist by trade, travels to a space station orbiting the mysterious planet Solaris so as to investigate its crew's bizarre visions. Soon after his arrival, he experiences the same problem, as his late wife Hari is suddenly made manifest. In time, it's revealed that the planet itself may have created her out of Kelvin's own memories. That's right: this is Tarkovsky's own version of Human Instrumentality. Solaris serves as a metaphorical reflection of the crew's memories, and the station is the thin space where the world of thoughts and memories is just as real as the physical realm.

Kelvin suffers from the same issue as Shinji: his past actions torment him, and his negative perception of himself only serves to taint how he believes others perceive him. Hari committed suicide, and for a decade onwards, he continues to blame himself for it. Her apparition, as with Third Impact, gives him a difficult choice: to stay and live in a reality that reflects what he desires most, or to reconcile himself with his past and finally move on from his wife's passing. There are a few minor differences in how Tarkovsky handles the topic (he probably would have considered Evangelion too "brutal" as he did with The Terminator, the hipster that he is), but I will stick to the most interesting one, being the resolution of this dilemma. Whereas it is fairly clear that Shinji learns to live for himself in End of Evangelion and love himself in the end of the show, Kelvin's decision is much more ambiguous. In fact, Hari grows much more than he does: she is unable at first to exist if he leaves her sight, but eventually becomes an independent entity. Furthermore, she comes to terms with the fact that she is not the original Hari, and decides by herself to die, believing that it is in Kelvin's best interest.

In the final sequence, the protagonist returns to his home on Earth and sees his father again, only for the camera to pull back and reveal their house to be an island on the ocean of Solaris. It's not merely an impressive shot, made all the more remarkable due to the film's scarcity of extravagant special effects: it opens the door to endless amounts of interpretation, in the same way that the unpredictable nature of The End of Evangelion allows for viewers to draw different conclusions out of the same material. It's already not certain whether this is the real Kelvin or a copy that Solaris made using his thoughts, but both answers offer their own share of questions in turn. I like to think that it is indeed a copy who, by virtue of his return to "Earth", learned to forgive himself, such that the planet can seek to understand what eluded Kelvin for many years. The movie ticks all of the essential Evangelion boxes, and thus holds a rock solid place as the Russian director's magnum opus.

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#2: THE MIRROR (1975)

For all of their similarities, no two Tarkovsky movies are truly alike. Therefore, the only way to go in the Evangelion-esque department after Solaris was down, but let's just say the slope wasn't too steep. For those who crave experimental and difficult cinema, The Mirror is a shoo-in favorite. Not only does it retain the lumbering pace and atmosphere of its predecessor (even though it's about an hour shorter), it has the director's most unconventional narrative by far, oscillating between three different time periods with a plethora of strange, yet visually powerful segues, sequences made out of newsreel footage, and others. It may be difficult to follow at first, but in time, the ideas that link these disparate sequences come to the forefront. The film depicts the memories of a man called Alexei, retracing his childhood, adolescence, and adulthood, and drawing heavily from Tarkovsky's own life experiences. The Mirror has not so much a literal narrative as it has an emotional narrative, as these disconnected incidents build towards Alexei's death as a sort of final reflection. An interesting component to the cinematography (among many) is that most shots of Alexei's adulthood are directly from his perspective, such that we never truly see him -- it's clear that his character is meant to be an extension of the director.

It's obvious that the film shares Evangelion's autobiographical tendencies, given that its own psychological aspects very much reflected David Lynch's state of mind as he struggled with depression resulting from heroin addiction. While the narrative framework is quite different, the strongest point of comparison may well be that of the female presence. In the show, the character of Yui plays an essential role as a missing figure in the lives of her son (Shinji) and husband (Gendo), both of whom seek out or engage in relationships with other women as a substitute for her. In The Mirror, Alexei's mother, Maria, is central to many of his thoughts, and her influence reaches deep, as many of his exchanges with his divorced wife Natalia reflect what he remembers of her.

Two essential details: first, the same actress (Margarita Terekhova) plays both Maria and Natalia. This consistency in appearance to imply a metaphorical connection very much lines up with Rei's resemblance to Yui (to be fair, there is a very literal reason for this in the case of Evangelion, although the bizarre similarity in facial structure across multiple characters certainly warrants further study). Second, Alexei's father rarely appears. This is another autobiographical element, as Tarkovsky mainly lived with his mother as a child, due to his father's absence around World War II. Those familiar with Evangelion already realize the implication: there is a strong Shinji-Gendo dynamic between Alexei and his father. At multiple points in The Mirror, Alexei attempts to convince Natalia to let their son Ignat stay at his house for a little while. All the more damning is that the same child actor portrays both Ignat and Alexei as an adolescent. There is a cyclical nature to these characters, where the father has little bearing on the child's life and the mother is left on her own. The stream-of-consciousness narrative may therefore be Alexei's recollection of a failed attempt to break this cycle, perhaps as an acknowledgement of his mother's resilience in raising him alone. We are already stepping away from Evangelion's turf, but many of the essentials remain.

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[Martintox]

#3: THE SACRIFICE (1986)

It is presumptuous to consider The Sacrifice as a sort of "final statement", simply by pointing out that it was Tarkovsky's final movie. Since the hit the KGB had on him only came to light after he had shot the film, it is dubious at best to interpret this as a thoughtful capstone to his career in the same vein as David Bowie's Blackstar. Even so, this picture is just as eager as any of his others to bring its themes to an irrevocable conclusion (The Mirror ends with the narrator's death, after all; you can't get more "final" than that). In that sense, The Sacrifice is an extremely "conclusive" movie, so much so that I consider it his End of Evangelion. Alexander, actor turned journalist and critic, jaded regarding God and the state of humanity, invites relatives and friends to his birthday, only for the threat of war and total nuclear destruction to loom over their heads. In this desperate situation, he begins to speak with God once again to find a way to stop this apocalypse.

If all of Tarkovsky's prior movies were meditative in their slow pacing, The Sacrifice is nerve-wracking instead, as it builds upon his most peaceful film opening with an almost crushing sense of tension. It may not look like it, but it captures precisely the apocalyptic vibe of End of Evangelion, with a character backed against the wall and made to face his deepest insecurities. What I consider to be a major theme in Evangelion is the notion of denial: because of underlying emotional issues, its major characters only connect with one another in a superficial way, as they fear the hurt that comes with meaningful interpersonal bonding. Shinji manages to press onward with the shallow validation that Rei, Asuka, and Misato give to him (it can be positive acknowledgement as much as it can be negative), but once he loses all three of these figures in End of Evangelion, he suffers a complete emotional breakdown.

Alexander is in such a situation, though it is ambiguous whether this threat of a nuclear holocaust is real. It's possible that the middle of the movie is a long dream in which he debates where to find his salvation -- either through penitence and sacrifice, or through pagan means by consummating with the "witch" Maria. I believe that it is, indeed, a dream, and a metaphor of a profound sense of existential stagnation. In the very beginning of The Sacrifice, the protagonist tells his son (nicknamed "Little Man") the story of a monk who watered a dead tree every day until it blossomed, claiming that one can change the world by performing the same task consistently, in a similar fashion. This dream is his realization that he is trapped in a poisonous routine. He does not believe in God, thus his life might have no internal or greater purpose; he does not believe in Man, thus he finds no point in interacting with the larger concept of humanity, hence the seclusion of his home and his fear that the outside world will destroy him as it has destroyed before. (There are a few disconnected sequences of a ruined street, implying that he has had prior experiences with war.)

Once Alexander awakens from this dream, he lures his family and friends away and burns down his house in their absence. There's no reason to believe this will literally stop the nuclear holocaust he dreads; what matters is that, through this act of faith, he asserts once more the notion that there is indeed a purpose for him, in the same way that Shinji affirms that there is a point to living for himself by leaving Human Instrumentality. The Shinji-Gendo dynamic also plays a minor role, as the final sequence has "Little Man" speak for the first and only time. As the Gendo of this duo, Alexander sacrifices his routine -- of which the house serves as the main fixture -- so that his son, left with the barren tree, may build a more spiritually fruitful routine, whether it is with or without him. A fair amount of this is up to interpretation, but for what little it takes from Evangelion in comparison to the two films above it, The Sacrifice executes them with such power that I am unable to place it any lower. It is a masterpiece of a movie, and a very good Evangelion take in addition.

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#4: ANDREI RUBLEV (1966)

It is here that the line between "Evangelion" and "not Evangelion" blurs, and the comparisons become increasingly ludicrous due to the sheer differences in settings, characters, and even deeper thematic details. Thus far, we have seen Tarkovsky reflect on memories and interpersonal links; now, one of his favorite themes -- the place of the artist in society -- takes form. Andrei Rublev is a biopic based on the life of the eponymous painter, who has difficulty understanding his purpose in the context of medieval Russia, back then a regular prey to Tatar attacks. This culminates in a particular raid in which he ends up killing another man, an act that shocks him so deeply that he vows neither to speak nor paint again as self-imposed retribution.

We are not entirely out of the woods of Lynch's ideas, but it is clear we are seeing them through a different prism. The clearest parallel to be drawn is with the hedgehog's dilemma, initially used in Evangelion to describe the conflict between Shinji's need for intimacy and his fear of hurting himself or others. Upon seeing his capacity to inflict pain, Rublev believes he is unworthy of his vocation as an artist, and withdraws himself entirely. Shinji attempts to run away from NERV twice in the show, as a way to prevent more violence resulting from his use of EVA-01. Of course, this comparison only truly works on the surface level, and ignores plenty of underlying details in both works' approach to the topic. Rublev's disconnect is portrayed as a meaningful act of self-sacrifice, in which the essential question is whether he can forgive himself so as to continue to paint as an act of faith and positivity. Shinji, in the meantime, abandons his station as a self-defense mechanism, as he would rather absolve himself of the possible consequences that come with using EVA-01 and endanger others by his absence than own up to said consequences.

In short, Andrei Rublev foregoes an essential component of the existential questioning of Evangelion: to the eponymous protagonist, there is no question as to the value in leaving his mark on the world. He genuinely fears not for himself, but for his fellow individual, something that took an entire show + movie for Lynch to assert with confidence. Still, since both works have a similar foundation, I am willing to give this movie a solid position, as it plays more as an alternate take than a completely unrelated product. Evangelionologists beware, for it only gets worse from here.

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[Martintox]

#5: STALKER (1979)

It feels sincerely bizarre to place this movie so low. Stalker has had such an impact on my psyche that, just a few nights ago, I had a dream I was playing Minecraft in a gamemode based on Roadside Picnic. It tightly competes with The Sacrifice for my favorite Tarkovsky film, as it shows that he had mastered his film style to such a level that he was able to present three men's field trip through Estonian power plants as a pilgrimage of spiritual salvation. As with the novel that served as inspiration, the central focus is the Zone, a cordoned area where reality seems to operate under different rules. A man only known as the Stalker, who has experience traversing this place, guides a writer and a professor to a "Room" that is supposedly able to fulfill a person's deepest desires. Due to their different motives and experiences, the latter two debate their place in the grand scheme of things, and whether they truly want to see this Room at all.

In this, as well as the following movie, Tarkovsky breaks away from the Evangelion approach in a major way. Strictly speaking, the notion of a deep misunderstanding between people is still essential, but it has much less to do with the need for intimate connection as it does with faith in humanity. The Writer, beyond a need for inspiration, finds it increasingly futile to bond with others through his occupation -- not because it is difficult, but because he's lost faith in his ability to do so in a meaningful way. Meanwhile, the Professor feels that the Room should be destroyed, let it is used for sinister purposes in the same way that science has in the past. Both put into question the Stalker's intent, but the latter maintains that he only wishes to give "the unhappy" the opportunity to find what they wish for inside the Zone. These three points of view reconcile to a certain degree, as the Room is left intact, but the Writer and Professor do not enter it, unconvinced by its capabilities.

In a sense, the idea of denial (as discussed with The Sacrifice) is still there, as the Stalker laments that the two ultimately lacked the good faith to understand the Zone. Thus, this voyage can be seen as one of introspection, in which the ideal outcome would have been for them to embrace their misery, and consequently work up the courage to enter the Room. Instead, they have internalized their misgivings, making this pilgrimage almost fruitless. Even so, the framework in which this theme evolves is already quite far removed from Evangelion, bringing it on the absolute borderline of "barely Evangelion". I'll say that I do get a bit of a Rei and Asuka vibe to the Professor and the Writer respectively. I could also go out on a limb and say that the Stalker is Tarkovsky's version of Kaworu: out of all of his movies, the former is the character most devout in his belief in humanity's capacity for decency and forgiveness, not unlike how the latter may be the only person in the entire NGE cast who is capable of true, unconditional love. However, this is not entirely appropriate, as the Stalker does not demonstrate the same level of inner peace, given the despair he feels after the failed expedition. I also don't find myself very convinced by the closing monologue on behalf of the Stalker's wife (Alisa Freindlich); it reads as a flimsy attempt to incorporate Shinji's wish to leave Instrumentality and become an individual once again, even with the hurt that comes with the boundary between people. I have reason to believe that this movie is so un-Evangelion-esque that Tarkovsky may well have been forced to leave the USSR for his own safety. As it turned out, the worst was yet to come...

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#6: NOSTALGHIA (1983)

There is a moderately vocal contingent of academics in Tarkovskist Evangelionology who argue that Nostalghia is secretly very similar to the Lynch masterwork, perhaps even more so than The Sacrifice, of which they are profound critics. This charade persists to this day, and I would not blame anyone who fell for it: even with only a 2-hour length, this is one of the director's most obtuse works, though not necessarily by much. A major reason for it is that, even with the handful of story beats that it has, the main point of interest is not the narrative, but the atmosphere that reflects the protagonist's state of mind. Andrei Gorchakov (the use of "Andrei" is on purpose) is a writer who travels to Italy to study the life of a Russian composer that lived there for some time. Much of the film details his interactions with Eugenia, his interpreter, and Domenico, a man who lives mostly apart from the locals and seems to share the same disillusion as Gorchakov. As with The Mirror, there is a major autobiographical element, as the premise lines up with the malaise that Tarkovsky may have felt traveling to Italy to work on Nostalghia, eventually never to return to his homeland.

While I hold profound sympathy (the more appropriate term might be "pity") for these Evangelionologists who are willing to go as far as to denigrate The Sacrifice in defense of a maligned movie that they genuinely love, I am obligated to set the record straight, as most of their arguments are minor at best, and outright misleading at worst. What of the dynamic between Andrei and Eugenia, whose debates on the inability to translate works of art in another language nearly turn into outright conflict? This is a red herring: by the end of the movie, the two end on reasonably good terms, as the point is not to show their difficulty in bridging together these two perspectives, but to convey Gorchakov's emotional isolation in an unknown setting, further accentuating his longing for home. What of the allusions to motherhood, particularly in the beginning of the film? Those who are particularly insidious in defending Nostalghia love this argument, as it allows them to draw comparisons with The Mirror, whose status as a great Evangelion piece is almost never put into question. Notwithstanding the fact that these ideas are but a minor component of the film, the lens through which they come into play is radically different, both thematically and literally (Tarkovsky used a different camera to shoot Nostalghia).

Finally, what of the ending, in which Andrei traverses the pool with the candle in hand, completing what Domenico was unable to accomplish and engaging in an act of "devotion" that allows him to break away from his feeling of troubled complacency regarding his lack of purpose? People who make this argument may have accidentally watched The Sacrifice -- a much better film -- instead, and they are only a step away from arguing that the use of Beethoven's 9th Symphony warrants bonus points just because it's in NGE as well. Kubrickologist scholars have long conceded that such a superficial detail does not help A Clockwork Orange's case either, what makes them think that'll fly here? It is definitive: in Nostalghia, Tarkovsky has decided to go his own way entirely, and the Evangelion quality drastically suffers for it. It is fortunate that he rebounded as well as he did before his death, but given his assassination, it may have been too little too late.

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#7: IVAN'S CHILDHOOD (1962)

Just watch Come and See.

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[SupahEwok]

Tl;dr

 

[Latif]

Wonderful top ten, though I have to ask: Since Girlfriend of Steel is so highly rated, what is your view on that little eccentric game of the late 90s era?

 

[fOx]

Wonderful top ten, though I have to ask: Since Girlfriend of Steel is so highly rated, what is your view on that little eccentric game of the late 90s era?

It is superbly written, drawn, and directed. However, the premise that shinji ikari could get a girlfriend pushes the setting past any suspension of disbelief.

 

[Martintox]

Wonderful top ten, though I have to ask: Since Girlfriend of Steel is so highly rated, what is your view on that little eccentric game of the late 90s era?

It is superbly written, drawn, and directed. However, the premise that shinji ikari could get a girlfriend pushes the setting past any suspension of disbelief.

You see, my belief is that the end of The End of Evangelion takes place before the end of show and before Girlfriend of Steel. The latter two are branching paths that Shinji is able to take, having made the realization that he cannot merely live based on the validation of others. The end of the show is the good ending, since he learns to affirm his existence and love himself. Girlfriend of Steel is the bad ending, as he relapses into his prior mindset, desperately in need of outside approval. You may be wondering how that would make sense, given the sordid state in which the Earth resides by the time EoE is over, but you must understand that this is all but a reflection of the main cast's state of mind; having become unable to hold back their emotional anguish, it has now become a permanent fabric of the environment. If the world is rebuild in Girlfriend of Steel, it is to indicate that the facade of denial has taken shape once again, leaving the fate of Shinji and pals ambiguous at best. It's not even certain whether the events are real, or Shinji is only hallucinating Mana as a desperate coping mechanism. This ambiguity makes it a very strong alternate ending -- very bleak, yes, but a potent warning that such a situation is not what Shinji needs to grow as an individual.