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The Mirror
BELGIUM · 1975

The Mirror

Andrei Tarkovsky
memory and identity artistic creation surveillance and paranoia pregnancy and transformation mystery and the subconscious
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Synopsis

Anne lives with her husband in Belgium where she works as a restorer of paintings. When she becomes pregnant, she finds herself remembering a picture she did some time ago and of which she has no memory, no recollection of what happened to it. It becomes her goal to discover and clarify the mystery behind this painting, at the same time she notices that a strange man is following all of her moves.

Cinema Atlas Connection
I guess I’m influenced by artists whose work has made a deep impact on me... Tarkovsky is a great example. I can think of a handful of his films that are just remarkable achievements. 'The Mirror' is one of my favourites, but it’s a difficult film to categorise. I loved Tarkovsky's work very much. I think it's very difficult to make films that can be compared to dreams... And 'The Mirror' is one of those films that is incredibly dream-like.

It's like a dream, it's very mysterious. I wanted to create an aesthetic for Arrival that will bring me closer to these kinds of dream-like images.

— Denis Villeneuve  ·  TIFF Bell Lightbox Q&A with Denis Villeneuve
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This Film Influenced

→ Blade Runner 2049 (2017) → Interstellar (2014) → Louder Than Bombs (2015)

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