Nostalghia (Blu-ray)

Andrei Tarkovsky explained that in Russian the word “nostalghia” conveys
“the love for your homeland and the melancholy that arises from being far
away.” This debilitating form of homesickness is embodied in the film by
Andrei (Oleg Yankovsky, The Mirror), a Russian intellectual doing research in
Italy. He becomes obsessed with the Botticelli-like beauty of his translator
Eugenia (Domiziana Giordano), as well as with the apocalyptic ramblings
of a self-destructive wanderer named Domenico (Erland Josephson, The
Sacrifice). Written with frequent Michelangelo Antonioni collaborator Tonino
Guerra (L’Avventura) and newly restored in from the original camera
negative, Nostalghia is a mystical and mysterious collision of East and West,
shot with the tactile beauty that only Tarkovsky can provide. As J. Hoberman
wrote, “Nostalghia is not so much a movie as a place to inhabit for two hours.”