Lucybespro It is a performances centric movie

Casey Duggan It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

Gary The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

Jerrie It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

thedarkknight-99999 When we see a film that leaves an impression in us, we often describe it as a dream-like film. In the case of The Mirror, we can't describe it like this, because it's just about some dreams or rather some memories that might be mere illusions. Although I hadn't known that before I watched this movie, I found that, for the most part, I was invested in the characters and I was caring about them. To my surprise, I was overwhelmed with many emotions, which are very different from each other, emotions of fear, tense, joy, sympathy, etc. In large part, that was due to Tarkovsky's poetic direction; the transition between a scene to another, the color changing according to the feelings not to the time, the harmonious music, and so on. The performances are also great and very realistic, especially from Margarita Terekhova who played two different characters. That being said, there are some subplots, or in this case I should say some memories, that I didn't care for at all, and I was so bored watching the movie at their times. Overall, Zerkalo is a film to experience, and this is my rating for experiencing it for the first time, and I'm sure it will be higher when I watch it again.(8/10)

Riley Porter It's actually sort of amazing to me that this film is only an hour and forty seven minutes. After watching it I felt like I had witnessed a four hour long saga detailing the history of a great many people and years. I don't mean to imply that the film dragged on or was overburdened with with frivolous details. What I'm trying to convey is that there is a lot to digest after witnessing this work of art. This film has a sort of contradictory nature. On one hand, it has a very particular perceptive, that of a man reflecting on his past. On the other hand, it speaks to the Russian experience, and, I suspect, the experience of mankind as it pertains to the modern age. Clearly much is said about the past and how it affects the experience of the present, as well as the nature of reflection and hindsight. The true scope of this film however, is difficult to determine with certainty. After all, as with all film, the viewer must endeavor to connect all the disparate pieces of the work in order to understand its true meaning. Of course that is where things become especially difficult with The Mirror. How does one reconcile the deeply personal experience of a man's relationship with his mother as a child with the trials of the Russian people during the 20th century? Beats me. I understand how someone could become frustrated in reading this review. It almost seems as though I'm cautioning people from watching this film given the challenge of it. That challenge of course, being the question of this film's meaning and the mission of uncovering it. Why would any audience want to waste their time with a challenge like that given the possibility of failure in this instance? That's a fair question I suppose. The answer of course is that this film is beautiful in a way that only a work of Tarkovsky's is. It has an ethereal quality which is difficult to appreciate fully without witnessing it. This film at once captures both the serene aspects of the natural world and the cruel nihilism of the human experience without putting either at odds with the other. As pretentious as that may sound, it is frankly the best way I can describe what I think makes this film, and other's by the director, unique and worth experiencing (For those concerned, so far as the obligatory review checklist of directing, cinematography, score, acting, etc is concerned, it's all fantastic).The main take away from this review, I hope, is that you understand that it's okay to not have all the answers to this film after watching it the first time. For my part, I'm very excited at the prospect of what I may discover in repeated viewings. If you approach this film with patience and an open mind, you will be greatly rewarded. Check it out. It's bananas.

georgiturlakov This is such a great movie, it was a pleasure to watch. I haven't seen such beautiful pictures in any other movie. They just open up your imagination - delicate and touching, stunning harmony. Every frame of Tarkovsky is a work of art. He just shows how it's done. You have to see it if you are a movie fan but if you are a Russian - it is an obligation.

dkwootton Ignat turns on the television and steps back, the camera panning behind his head placing the spectator into his mind (or into his consciousness). We watch what he watches – a doctor helping a teenager overcome a speech impediment. The two shots that precede the pre-title sequence are a curious opener for a film, but could not be a more appropriate way to begin The Mirror (1974), Tarkovskii's introspective study into memory. The televised examination of the stutterer is one of those rare, inexplicable moments that stand out when reflecting on one's childhood: we cannot control the distinctive images or brief flashes that stick, but for some odd reason they do.The Mirror is a tremendously personal film, with Tarkovskii's father Arsenii reading his own poetry, and (I assume) many of the past sequences and dreams lifted from the filmmaker's own life (we even see a poster for the director's second endeavor Andrei Roublev (1966) during a pan in the phone conversation). Tarkovskii turns the abstract, the metaphysical and the spiritual into something concrete in his images. The film is loosely structured playing as if a recollection of memories with each scene a strong impression from the past. The rich greens, the moment with the fence breaking and doctor laughing, the gust of wind as he walks away and the burning barn all seem as though Tarkovskii is reconstructing vivid incidents from his youth and transcribing them to celluloid. Tarkovskii often employs his trademark meditative long takes; each shot an investigation into motion as the filmmaker dwells on subtle textures such as the dripping of water, the river stream and the strength of the wind. The title The Mirror evokes a reflection, possibly the way we reflect upon and dream about our own past experiences. Our nostalgic and imaginative visions from the past maintain a realness that "objective" history lacks. In the final moments of our life, all we have are our learned experiences and flashes from our memories as Tarkovskii gives us a bird leaping from the hands of the dying man cutting to the sun setting in the open field, the childhood house and the mother laying in the grass.