Tarkovsky and the Living Dream of Cinema

"Tarkovsky for me is the greatest [director], the one who invented a new language, true to the nature of film, as it captures life as a reflection, life as a dream." - from Wikipedia

"Thinks he’s a writer, too, by the way. He just can’t understand that a book’s a deed, not a paycheck. A poet must stir the soul, not nurture idolaters.

I keep having my dream. When I dream of the log walls and dark pantry, I sense that it’s only a dream. Then my joy is clouded, for I know I’ll wake up. Sometimes something happens, I stop dreaming of the house and the pines by the house of my childhood. Then I grieve and wait for the dream, that will make me a child again, and I’ll be happy again knowing that all still lies ahead and nothing is impossible…"

- from Tarkovsky's film, "Mirror"

Read "Dream Come True" an essay on Tarkovsky's film "Ivan's Childhood"

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I plunge headlong into the rocky ledge, a violent overfull valley, spilling into a mountainous void. I roll with the water amid the fixed stones, at the lip of a great waterfall. The pristine water is translucent. I am enwrapped in its confident downward pressure, to another world below.

At an Iranian friend’s house, I gaze at his wall of historical Persian metal wares, ancient pitchers and serving plates. They are bedecked with vibrant floral patterns, subdued with aging pigments amid a host of cultural décor. I notice one plate, standing against the wall behind most with an unusual patterning and coloration. “That one is Iraqi,” my friend confirms. A mysterious air breathes into our space as I gaze wearily into the Iraqi plate. 

The house opens into a full party, with laser neon club lights and steam flashing in a cacophony of mixed emotion and volatile potency from a youth desiring some greater fame than their abundant cultural upbringing. Tired of their unmatched indecision, wallowing in a spiritual squalor of heady daze, I shrink back outside into the unseen fold.

As I exit, I am at the entrance of the Amazon River basin as it snakes through the city of Iquitos. Looking forward through the dense canopy horizon, spindly serpent branches reach with emerald fire into the painstaking honesty of life and death. The humidity, secreted as from the pores of a mythic dragon, interchanges with the burly clouds shading the triumphant waterways. A diamond white streak of light, a perpetual lightning strike, an unwavering sunbeam, steals a path in the river, filling its surface with a radiant sheen from bank to bank. A path is lit toward the horizon beyond, where the river snakes into the pure touch of jungle, a celestial calling, a way out.

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Valley
"If the valley is barren, the reverse is predicted. If marshy, illness or vexations may follow. Vistas of green valleys with pleasant streams running through them show that you are embarking on a wonderful change that will bring you only happiness and much peace." (iDream)

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to catapult mind's range beyond all unknowing

further than the outermost reaches where our love, once was gone,
and now with her,
returned

- excerpt from "She with graying hair"