Mirror (1975)

Using a nonlinear structure interlaced with dreams and flashbacks, director Andrei Tarkovsky creates a stream-of-consciousness meditation on war, memory and time that draws heavily on events from his own life. Tarkovsky’s film alter ego is Alexei (Ignat Daniltsev), a dying man in his 40s whose commonplace interactions with his wife (Margarita Terekhova) and children summon up a host of memories, ranging from his parents’ divorce to his time on the battlefields of World War II.

The smallest details (a stammering child, the wrinkle in the turned page of a book) stick like burrs, and we are left to wonder if any director has delved with more modesty and honesty into the heartbreak of the past. – The New Yorker

The Mirror deserves a big-screen viewing, with its smorgasbord of memories in dream, drama and newsreel form from the life of a dying poet. – Times (UK)