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The aesthetics of overflow: Andrei Tarkovsky's Nostalghia (1983) in duration

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posted on 2023-06-09, 01:53 authored by Matilda Mroz
This chapter argues that the space of the thermal pool is central to Tarkovsky’s exploration of the mystery of sacrifice and the pain of exile in Nostalghia. Spatially, the geometry and textures of the pool are echoed throughout the film’s interiors, in hotel corridors and cathedrals. I propose that we can see Tarkovsky’s aesthetic in Nostalgia as one of overflow. The water that initially fills the pool overflows into nearly every scene, as interiors of houses are flooded in dream-like visions, and the echoing sound of dripping water is omnipresent. Thematically, the film explores the way in which past and present, memory and dream, and the spaces of home and exile flow into each other, using techniques of superimposition. I argue that such overflowing, in both theme and aesthetic, can be productively read in conjunction with Henri Bergson’s theories of duration, in which variegated temporal rhythms continually bleed into each other. Nostalgia’s pool forms a space of becoming, where place and identity is continually in flux.

History

Publication status

  • Published

Publisher

Peter Lang

Issue

17

Book title

The cinema of the swimming pool

ISBN

9783034317832

Series

New studies in European cinema

Department affiliated with

  • Media and Film Publications

Full text available

  • No

Peer reviewed?

  • Yes

Editors

Pam Hirsch, Christopher Brown

Legacy Posted Date

2016-06-27

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