The Sacrifice [Offret] ***** (1986, Erland Josephson, Susan Fleetwood, Allan Edwall, Guðrún Gísladóttir, Sven Wollter) – Classic Movie Review 1715

Writer-director Andrei Tarkovsky’s 1986 final masterwork stars Erland Josephson, who plays Alexander, an increasingly reclusive former actor, journalist and philosopher who has shunned fame and turned away from the vanities of society. It won four awards at the 1986 Cannes Film Festival and the 1988 Bafta award for Best Foreign Language Film.

Alexander lives with his bored and unfaithful wife Adelaide (Susan Fleetwood) and his alienated family in a remote house on a deserted stretch of coast, communicating only with his small son, whom he tells of his fears over the lack of spirituality in the world.

On the night of Alexander’s birthday, the television announces that World War Three has begun. In his despair, he prays to God, offering Him all that he has – his marriage, his family and friends, his beautiful house and even his precious solitude – to prevent the war happening and save the world.

Tarkovsky died in Paris of lung cancer on December 29 1986 at the age of only 54 soon after its release. His last testament and memorial here is a gloriously poetic spiritual journey through fear and destruction to hope and renewal, a journey enlightened with the most striking and beautiful visual metaphors. Josephson is superb.

Erland Josephson passed away on February 25 2012, aged 88. Susan Fleetwood died of ovarian cancer on September 29 1995, aged only 51.

It was shot in Sweden with many of fellow director Ingmar Bergman’s regular collaborators, and won a very rare tally of four prizes at the Cannes Film Festival, but it failed to win the Palme D’Or that it deserved at Cannes.

The final image echoes the opening shot of a tree in Tarkovsky’s first feature Ivan’s Childhood in 1962. Tarkovsky states on screen at the end: ‘This film is dedicated to my son Andriosha – with hope and confidence.’

Sven Nykvist’s incredible cinematography won one of the film’s four awards at the Cannes Film Festival in 1986 – for Best Artistic Contribution. It was also the winner of the Grand Prize of the Jury, the FIPRESCI Prize and the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury at Cannes in 1986, as well as the BAFTA Best Foreign Language Film award in 1988. The amazing soundtrack mixes Bach (Matthäus-Passion: Erbarme Dich), Swedish folk music and Japanese Shakuhachi.

Shamefully it had one of Channel 4’s lowest Film Four audiences at the time of only 450,000 on its TV premiere in February 1989. The then London Times film critic David Robinson called it ‘a work of genius’, so we’ll leave it at that.

© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Movie Review 1715

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