Page - 119 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 04/02

118 | Philippe Bornet www.jrfm.eu 2018, 4/2, 117–120 lation to religion. As noted in the third part (363–364), despite identifying as an Orthodox Christian, the director never entirely embraced this identity and, like many of his contemporaries, seems to have been skeptical about the institu- tional (or normative) aspect of religion. This raises the question of how this am- biguous relation did (or did not) impact the representation of religious themes in his work – a question which is tackled by the author but which could be drawn out further, although it might very well be that sources to reconstruct this are simply missing. A second point is whether Tarkovsky’s appreciation of his own work should always be taken at face value, especially since his autobiographi- cal book is a late retrospective reconstruction of his career. But again, external sources might be scarce. The study of religious or spiritual aspects in The Sacrifice is an important part of the second part (105–337), “analyse et interprétation”, which begins with the history of the film’s genesis. The film is convincingly presented as closely entan- gled with the director’s own life: as the main protagonist, Alexander, Tarkovsky himself can be seen as devoting his life to raising a certain awareness about materialism, the lack of spirituality among his contemporaries, or the ecological peril (133). As such, the director could appear as a kind of prophet in the apoca- lyptic zeitgeist of the cold war and its nuclear threats – incidentally, the film’s first projection in April 1986 coincided with the Tchernobyl disaster (128–129). There follows a detailed and systematic analysis of the film with a focus on “spiritual” themes. Underlining the arbitrary character of a clear-cut division of shots and sequences – something particularly true for a film which precisely aims at breaking away from pre-established structures – the author suggests a well-thought subdivision into 121 shots and 15 sequences (138). This subdivi- sion is centered around three temporal elements: (1) the time before the ca- tastrophe (sequences 1 to 4), (2) the catastrophe itself, the consequences of a nuclear war, the promise made by Alexander to God to sacrifice himself if time is reversed, and the recourse to “faith” as the only way out (sequences 5 to 12), and (3) the revelation that time was actually reversed in exchange for Alexander’s fulfillment of his promise to burn his house and to remain silent for the rest of his life (sequences 13–15). The author proceeds then to analyze the soundtrack: music, noises from nature, and noises produced by humans. Maroy shows that sounds are particularly crucial here as they are often associated with the evocation of a “spiritual world” or with symbolical meanings – in particu- lar, Bach’s aria from the St. Matthew Passion “Erbarme dich”, suggesting the mood of bitter regret that is central to the film. The next section is devoted to a close analysis of each of the 156 shots (188–272), a difficult task but successfully carried out. Here, particular attention is paid to the composition of scenes, to the movement of actors and the camera, and to the soundtrack, with interest- ing comparisons between scenes and many insightful interpretations. The last