The Sacrifice

Andrei Tarkovsky's last film is his most accessible, most gripping, than most successful. In a role created for him, Bergman vertean Erland Josophson gives an extraordinary performance as an intellectual and former actor who has retired to a remote country home. As he receives friends and relatives for a birthday celebration, a shocking catalclysmic event occurs, leaving this undertain hero with the need to perform a perfect act of faith in order to save his world. Savn Nykvist's camera lends startling imagery to this exceptional work. Said Ingmar Bergman of the film, “I felt encouraged and stimulated: someone was expressing what I had always wanted to say without knowing how. Tarkovsky is for me the greates, the one who invented a new language, true to the nature of film, as it captures life as a reflection, life as a dream.”