I sit here, agog, with the holy terror of wonder and amazement at the immensely tender spirituality which this film has bestowed upon me.

This is my second Tarkovsky film...and now I am hooked. I am not going to be very successful in explaining this movie to anyone -- even to myself, so forgive the sketchiness of these reflections.

THE SACRIFICE is a revelation to me. The level of pathos I feel right now is overwhelming -- something that has occurred too infrequently in my life.

This film regards the human soul as the most precious commodity possible and life as it's most ample celebration. "Time cannot vanish without trace.." Tarkovsky has said. And so the time that Tarkovsky spent on this Earth, has been well spent and he has left more than a trace for future generations to wonder and ponder at.

I adore Tarkovsky's images, so lovingly photographed here by SVEN NIKVIST. Most remarkable of these images are the final settings where everything comes to a point...even THEY have dialogue made up of great silences packed with intensely significant emotions which have come from the protagonist's culmination.

The choice of music here is also deeply personal and wildly original in its contrasts and penetrating meaning. In the final strains, we hear first the modern and timeless Asian sensibilities of Watazumido Shuso. After which a great silence of visual narrative we are offered a spiritual selection from some of the most beautiful music ever written -- Johann Sebastian Bach's St. Matthew Passion.

All of these, combine in one's mind's eye and heart to provide the thoughtful viewer with one of the most spiritually satisfying endings of any movie I have ever witnessed.

The movie seems long but, it really isn't as long as you might imagine. I suppose it is because so much of the narrative is not splashed into our senses -- ready for regurgitation. There is much we must work for. There is much for which we must contribute our own viewpoints and form our own conclusions.

But then life isn't filled with dialogue in the conventional sense...it is more packed with our own thoughts and our own decisions -- as so is this film. It allows you to conclude many things on your own.

Isn't it kind of Tarkovsky to have been so benevolent to us and our panoply of thought-patterns? We come to this movie all with our different characters and personalities...Tarkovsky thought of this.

And he offered us a masterpiece - where we were the mental protagonist who made the endings for each us - our own -- and yet all different -- but the same, after all.

THIS IS IT!!!! When people talk about pretentious and boring films that sophisticated people fawn over, this is the best example I can think of apart from a few films by Jean-Luc Godard! While some unfairly look at Ingmar Bergman's films as being pretentious (they've been made fun of repeatedly on TV and in short like De Düva),I have seen a huge number of them and they are not pretentious. While they aren't always as great as some claim (and this is true of any film maker),but it is clear he is a great writer and director. However, this horrible film that is a joint Swedish-Russian production IS pretentious, boring and just about as much fun as eating broken glass. No,...wait,...I think I'd rather eat broken glass than watch this film again. Now I am NOT saying movies need to be fun to be watched and appreciated--it's just that if they are depressing and bizarre there should be some reason for subjecting the viewer to this.

The movie delights in long and emotionally disconnected camera work. Some may see this as artistic, but I just see it as dull and lifeless. Then, when it is combined with interminably long and self-exploratory monologues, it is a recipe for total boredom. The characters rarely interact--they talk at each other or just talk into space. And the surrealistic elements of the film may seem sophisticated to some, but to me they are a giant headache. For a similar effect, read several books by Albert Camus, a couple existential philosophers and then rap yourself in the head with a mallet.

If you like this film--great. I am very happy for you. But you also should realize for the average viewer (and in fact, MOST viewers),this film will be a tedious experience. In other words, this movie definitely is for a very, very selective audience.

FYI--This is the third film I have seen directed by the widely acclaimed Russian director, Andrei Tarkovsky. While many love his films, I have found all three overly long, overly introspective and overly "artsy". He just isn't my taste, though if you have a very high tolerance for these sort of films, you may love them.

While not quite his best film(Andrei Rublev),The Sacrifice, like every film Andrei Tarkovsky did, still manages to be a wonderful film. Like other Tarkovsky films, particularly Solaris, it requires a lot of patience- like Solaris The Sacrifice has a rather ponderous and static first 30 minutes that might alienate viewers- but if stuck with it is very rewarding.

Tarkovsky's films are some of the most visually accomplished and beautiful films ever seen, and The Sacrifice certainly is visually accomplished and beautiful with positively dream-like photography, evocative scenery that reflects the horror of nuclear war brilliantly and stirring images and symbolism that are not too hard to understand. That's unsurprising though considering it's from Sven Nykvist, an Ingmar Bergman regular and one of the greatest cinematographers who ever lived. Tarkovsky's direction, which always had a rare consistency in quality(to me he never made a bad film- one of the few directors for that to be the case- even my least favourite Ivan's Childhood is great as well as his most accessible),is as usual exemplary. There is a vast Bergman influence here in terms of themes, but there is enough of Tarkovsky's style to still make it feel still like a Tarkovsky film.

The music is haunting and melancholic, like with Mirror Bach has never been more effectively used on film, and the script evokes a lot of thought and succeeds in giving dimension to the characters. The story is more rigid and uncomprisingly detached than Tarkovsky's other films, but while the film is deliberately slow and long there still is a lot of power and emotional impact, especially in the truly miraculous scene with the witch and the powerful epilogue. The acting suits the film very well indeed with Bergman regular Erland Josephsen giving a compelling performance in the multi-faceted lead role. Overall, not his best film, for me it ranks around the middle of his filmography, but Tarkovsky's final film(he probably would have done more films had he not died so young) hits a high note. 9/10 Bethany Cox