Short Essay

Tarkovsky’s THE SACRIFICE: Art, Not Entertainment

Posted by Edward R. O'Neill on

The house burning at the end of THE SACRIFICE

Quintessential World Art Cinema

Andrei Tarkovsky made seven films. 1986’s Sacrifice was his last. These films are all visually beautiful, slow, and mysterious. They are “art films,” and Sacrifice became increasingly perceived as such over time.

Absorbing Visuals

The visual elements of Sacrifice have drawn a lot of attention: specifically, some very long takes, and the film’s striking use of color.  The film opens and closes, for instance, with very long takes. One summary says:

The film opens with a nine-and-a-half-minute virtuoso tracking shot depicting Alexander planting a tree with his son. One of the last shots in the film, which depicts the burning down of Alexander’s house, lasts six and a half minutes.

Still frames from the ending of THE SACRIFICE show a house burning down and its inhabitants fleeing.
Still frames from the ending of THE SACRIFICE show a house burning down and its inhabitants fleeing.

These very long takes are a part of the director’s signature style. One of his shorter long takes is part of CineFix’s video “12 Best Long Takes in Film History”

Still image from SACRIFICE: the protagonist and his mute son attend to a tree that is struggling to grow. The main characters of THE SACRIFICE
Interiors in SACRIFICE often use color that is significantly desaturated–especially in contrast to the outdoor scenes.

Color, Black, and White

The use of color in Sacrifice also draws our attention. The opening scenes of nature use saturated blues and greens for the sky and plants. By contrast, the interior scenes use muted, desaturated colors. In a well-illustrated essay, Benjamin Brockbank-Naylor points to Sacrifice for its desaturated colors.

Saturated vs. desaturated colors in SACRIFICE
Benjamin Brockbank-Naylor’s still frames demonstrating the use of saturated vs. desaturated colors in SACRIFICE.

And three times the film is interrupted by shots in black-and-white.

black-and-white insert shot from SACRIFICE (1986)     black-and-white insert shot from SACRIFICE (1986)

black-and-white insert shot from SACRIFICE (1986)     black-and-white insert shot from SACRIFICE (1986)

black-and-white insert shot from SACRIFICE (1986)     black-and-white insert shot from SACRIFICE (1986)

These seem to be the main character’s vision, dream, or nightmare. It’s unclear.

Mixed Critical Reception

Upon its release, Sacrifice evoked mixed reactions from critics. Its virtues were appreciated, but it frustrated some critics. Bickering TV critics Siskel and Ebert found a lot to bicker about with Sacrifice.

Gene Siskel found “some beautiful images,” some parts “pointless,” and the whole film “very uneven.” Roger Ebert argued that Tarkovsky’s goal is to transform us: “the opposite of entertaining us.” Siskel tersely retorts “I got the message,” adding: it would be better if it were shorter.

Fast Forward

Looking back, Village Voice writer Sam Weisberg summarizes and accepts these opposing views

Upon its release 28 years ago, Andrei Tarkovsky’s final film, Sacrifice, was variously called “stunningly beautiful” and “impossible to sit through” by critics. It is both.

In 2007, The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw finds time has changed his perceptions.

Andrei Tarkovsky’s final film from 1986, re-released for the 75th anniversary of his birth, looks to me quite different twenty years on.

Bradshaw called Sacrifice “brilliant and audacious,” citing the final sequence with the six-plus-minute take as “more complex and ambiguous than it appeared at the time.”

Slowly, Sacrifice has come to be seen more as a powerful work of art than as an uneven piece of entertainment.

—Edward R. O’Neill