The Sacrifice (1986, PG)

(Offret) Dir: Andrey Tarkovskiy, Sweden, 142mins, 35mm

Retired actor and writer Alexander has gathered all that he loves around him in his country estate: his books and art, his younger second wife, an adored young son. But the rest of the world lacks this harmony and there are rumours of impending nuclear war. Alexander becomes desperate and makes a talismanic personal offering to a God he’s barely previously acknowledged. The next morning all is right again with the world. Yet Alexander knows God must be paid off. Made in exile in Sweden, Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky’s final film is often compared to Ingmar Bergman and drew on many of his regular cast and crew, including star Erland Josephson. But signs of Tarkovsky’s other great influence – Robert Bresson – are also manifest: in its sense of the vulnerability of all material things and the foolishness of religious certainty.