Page - 118 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 04/02

Review: Le sacrifice d’Andreï Tarkovski | 117www.jrfm.eu 2018, 4/2, 117–120 Philippe Bornet Book Review Jean-Luc Maroy, Le sacrifice d’Andreï Tarkovski: une parabole sur le temps de la fin Paris: L’Harmattan 2017, 472 pp., ISBN: 978-2-8061-0350-5 This detailed study of Andrei Tarkovsky’s The Sacrifice (SE/GB/FR 1986) is a re- vised version of a doctoral thesis in Catholic practical theology defended at the University of Louvain. It is structured around three main parts: an introduction to Tarkovsky’s cinematographic practices, an analysis of various scenes of The Sacrifice, and a theological comment on major themes. In the first part (19–104), “l’esthétique tarkovskienne”, Jean-Luc Maroy situ- ates The Sacrifice within the director’s entire oeuvre. Referring to Tarkovsky’s own assessment of his work, his autobiographical essay Sculpting in Time,1 Maroy emphasizes that art, for Tarkovsky, is an evocative or symbolic way to suggest a sense of a “real truth” or of the absolute. According to Maroy, Tarkov sky considers art as an expedient to evoke deeper levels of reflection, to raise spiritual questions, and, more specifically given the context of the 20th century, to counter the western culture of materialism and consumption. Na- ture and landscape are revalorized as a “sacred mystery”, a mystery that has been forgotten by the majority of people in modern times. As Maroy convinc- ingly shows, these intentions run through most of Tarkovsky’s eclectic produc- tion, from Solaris (SU 1972) to Stalker (SU 1979) and The Sacrifice. Aiming at awakening a critical reflection among his putative watchers, Tarkovsky’s film- making is then the exact opposite of Soviet cinema, in which the images and the ideological message they were supposed to convey were under strict control. The audience, however, was not always as open to being questioned, resulting in a mixed reception. Similarly, the “spiritual” element has often escaped the at- tention of both the general public and critics, so that, as the author legitimately claims, the present work can be considered as filling a research desideratum. This first part provides an excellent summary of Tarkovsky’s aesthetics and proves to be particularly valuable for the rest of the analysis. Two questions could be further developed. The first concerns Tarkovsky’s own complicated re- 1 Tarkovsky 1986. DOI: 10.25364/05.4:2018.2.7