Rating: 
Summary: A work of great humanism.
Review: This film tells the story of a famous russian painter in the 15th century. It shows the brutality of medieval times such as raping, heathen orgies or the gruesome butchery of animals.
It was also a time were some crazy peasants tried to master the elements by flying into the air with a balloon only to crush into the ground. And after all it was a young hotshot who had the skills to create one piece of art: a bell made out of clay. Tarkovsky (along with writing collaborateur Andrei Machalkov-Konchalovsky, director of (among others) "Tango & Cash" !) shows all those cruelties with great realism (I don't want to know how many horses died during the shooting of the film) and it never turned out to be exploitative. The stunning images of this film will haunt you long after the final credits and for me it's hardly to believe that a film of such great humanity and spirit could have been done in a bureaucratic state in which censorship was quite normal.The transfer is quite beautiful as you could expect it from Criterion. The movie is presented in a beautiful letterboxed format and in it's original director's cut with the exhausting running time of 205 (!) minutes. Extras include audio commentary by harvard film professor Vlada Petric which, is in my opinion, a little academic at times and a rare film interview with the director as well as a video essay on the filmmaker's work. Great stuff recommended !
Rating:
Summary: One of the most beautiful of all films
Review: 'Andrei Rublev' is one of the most beautiful and disturbing meditations upon faith I have ever witnessed. As a film it is consistently astonishing - so many of the images are unforgettable, the musical score is fragile and haunting, and the overall conception so inspiring that, personally speaking, it restored my faith in the power of film. Along with Tarkovsky's other works, 'Rublev' is more akin to poetry than to simple narrative prose. Rather than approaching it as a regular film, I find it helpful to imagine that I'm about to enter an art gallery and view an exhibition by a master. It repays repeated viewings, and it is not a film to hurry you along with the urgencies of plot - Tarkvovsky, as he often states in his writings, is concerned with the nature and effect of time in the context of cinema - the pace then is contemplative. There are few if any commercial considerations motivating the making of this film, so unsurprisingly it inhabits a world entirely alien to that of mainstream Hollywood.
*
The opening scene reveals a Russian Icarus attempting to 'fly'. His faith must overcome not only his own fear, but the wrath of others who find his ambition threatening. He escapes and we inhabit his point of view, one approximating that of God perhaps, Tarkovsky depicting the landscape and its people as something suddenly abstract. The frighteningly primitive hot air balloon inevitably fails, and as it hisses in its final resting place it appears as something organic, like some grotesque human organ proving its mortality. The soundtrack throughtout this scene is particularly evocative.
*
After this the monk, Andrei Rublev, is introduced and a series of events demonstrates and tests his faith in himself, in God, and in other human beings. Images of the worst cruelty and barbarism are juxtaposed with ideas of transcendent beauty - at one point the whitened interior of a pavillion is inexplicably filled with softly floating feathers and down (this looks likes snow, but the commentary tells otherwise); at another, a peasant village is drawn as if from a painting by Bruegel; a pagan ritual has torch fires flashing through a nocturnal forest. From these backgrounds emerge sounds that seem almost supernatural - the lone female voice that comes intermittently, her song like the most delicate filament imaginable, being the one that stays with me most.
*
The final scene is truly climactic. A boy, who is alone in the world, apparently leans on knowledge passed on from his father in order to fashion a magnificent bell for his ruler - in so doing he is risking his life, for he will be killed if the bell is not resonant. The construction of this bell is enthralling, the firing of the metal and the pouring, spectacular. Ultimately it is revealed, however, that the boy has not placed his faith in his father, but in himself, in his art, and, it is implied, in God. Rublev comforts the child and this moment serves as an epiphany after which Rublev's faith in his own vocation is restored. The film erupts into colour at its close, as we are left with ravishing images of Orthodox iconography, Rublev's faith made incarnate.
*
If this film appeals, then it is easy to recommend Tarkovsky's other works, especially 'Nostalghia' and 'The Mirror'; Tarkovsky was also an admirer of the films of Carl Theodor Dreyer, and the latter's films are some of the very few that, for mine, equal Tarkovsky's achievement.
*
The Criterion DVD has excellent picture quality and sound - better than the prints I've seen in theatres. If you have a widescreen TV the format can be optimised by setting for 'zoom' and adjusting the vertical pitch of the image until the black bar on the top of the screen disappears - the subtitles will then be fully visible below the frame. (Actually, I'd suggest trying to view the film with the subtitles turned off - particularly on a third or fourth viewing - for me, the visuals become all the more overwhelming.)
Rating: 
Summary: Very Dissapointing Compared to Tarkovsky's Other Work
Review: I consider Tarkovsky's films Solaris and Nostalghia to be two of the greatest films ever made. This film does NOT rise to that level. Think of a Jean-Luc Goddard film, one filmed in black and white... now think of that film set in medieval Russia. That is Andrei Rublev. Tarkovsky is a much more talented cinematographer than Goddard, but the film is basically a failed and pretentious attempt at "art". It is brilliant at times (unlike most of Goddard's films), but somehow fails to coalesce into a satisfactory whole. Give this one a pass and watch Nostalghia, a film that truly is Art in cinema. I give it 4 stars only because some isolated parts were wonderful, but the film as a whole was quite mediocre, and i am not sure i will ever watch it again, even though i own the DVD.
Rating:
Summary: Òàðêîñêèé - Îäèí èç ëó÷øèõ ðåæèñåðîâ ñòîëåòèÿ
Review: Åñëè ó âàñ åñòü âðåìÿ ïîñìîòðèòå ôèëüì! Àíäðåé Ðóáëåâ ïðåêðàñíàÿ êàðòèíà
Rating:
Summary: Watch it before you Buy it...
Review: Word of warning - Tarkovsky's films tend to be SLOW. It's a great movie for various reasons, but definitely not for everyone. You'll either love it or fall asleep.
Rating:
Summary: I can tell, this is a good mastering of this Movie
Review: Occasionally there are Brightness and luminance flashes but there is no real serious problem with the film, it's beautifully rendered balck and white. Hooray criterion once again. Only problem it could have been anmorphic, its a bugger of a problem to try and get the right ratio on a wide screen TV
Rating:
Summary: Risking life itself
Review: See this film. It is a masterpiece in all ways. It has a slow first half. It pays off in the second half. Beyond its art, it has courage and faith in and surrounding it. When you watch Keaton, part of the wonder is, since he did his own stunts, he risked death for a gag. Everyone involved in this film risked death being a part of it. When it was made, Brezhnev had recently seized Soviet power, and the swing was toward Stalinism. Beyond being a testament to the Soviet banned religion, it portrays the communists as the tartars, hooligans who ravage everything in their way. The movie's second, wonderful ending, of course, is that the film is here and the Soviet Union is gone. It's well filmed, although the acting is SOOOOO solemn. All movies of this period are. Were smiles and laughter invented after 1800? To watch movies depicting the period before, joy seems foreign. thomas_bradley@hotmail.com
Rating:
Summary: Python and Rublev
Review: Saw this once this evening and have to say I am shocked that no one mentions the obvious, even startling debt that Python's "Holy Grail" owes to this movie. An astonishing number of visual moments from that film are borrowed or parodied directly, not to mention the "look and feel". I was once you start looking, the debt becomes glaring.
Rating:
Summary: Very few films compare.
Review: This is easily one of the greatest movies I've ever seen. The first time I saw it, I was feeling pretty stupid. I wasn't sure I really understood what was happening, other than in a roundabout way. I didn't know if I was going to be able to get through the whole thing (not because it's slow--which it can be--but because I didn't feel I was following it completely), but when I got to the end, I watched it right over again. Anyhow, like many of Tarkovsky's films, it is difficult, but never pretentious, and completely rewarding.
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful filmmaking
Review: I believe that film is a truly respectable modern art form when done well. Tarkovsky is a filmmaker who must be regarded as one of the great 20th century artists, ranking up there with Cartier-Bresson, Picasso, O'Keefe, Lucian Freud, and Brassai. Andrei Rublev is perhaps one of the most stunning films I have ever encountered . . . and certainly one of the most stunning works of art I have ever seen. It continues to beguile and capture my intellect viewing after viewing.
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