Chapter VIII Summary and Analysis

The film Nostalgia is discussed, the first film Tarkovsky made outside of Russia. He intended it as a sort of love song to Russia, a laudatory view of the country and its culture. Specifically, Russians are so attached to their country, they cannot cope or adapt when outside of it. The film centers on a Russian in Italy who is having trouble assimilating and communicating in a foreign land.

When Tarkovsky first looked at the footage of Nostalgia, he found it excessively gloomy, a state which mirrored his own inner turmoil, being far from his family and country while filming in Italy. The protagonist, named Gorchakov, undergoes a spiritual crisis and dies without these crisis having been resolved. He was unable to assimilate. And this is true tragedy, for human connections are essential for man to exist and to...