More style than content.
This was my first contact with the cinematographic work of Andrei Tarkovsky, a Soviet filmmaker who would end his career outside his native country when he fell into disgrace for allegedly spending too much money on films that were not worthy of the expense. A regrettable attitude, but typical of countries that prefer to spend money on missiles than on support for culture and education, especially after considering how dangerous and insubmissive can be a cultured population capable of thinking without anyone from a party saying what It's the right thing.
This is not, however, an ordinary Soviet film, loaded with subliminal messages, more or less direct, demonizing the rich and praising the effort and dignity of workers. On the contrary. Tarkovsky takes us to a desolate world, apparently hostage to repressive authority. There is nothing beautiful there. And there is a space where no one can go, called the Zone, in which there is, supposedly, a room that makes the dreams of those who arrive there come true. However, the difficulty is immense.
Being a Russian film, it is obviously a huge, dull, heavy film. Let's face it, it's to be expected: Russians like big things. Big countries, big armies, gigantic cannons and missiles. Russia cultivates that taste for gigantism, of which the Tsar-Pushka is a prominent symbol. It's difficult to see everything, the way the film develops, in deliberate slowness, is exhausting and dark. The cinematography is partly in sepia (color comes later, and the colors are directly associated with entering the prohibited area) and has been well crafted, as have the sets and filming locations. The rest simply doesn't matter: it's a film that is almost silent, and that puts style above substance.