while i was watching this film, i was struck by how much of a andrei tarkovsky film that this was. actually, i was struck by how every single one of the films of his that i have seen can be thought of as purely his. there is something that is so pure and hypnotic about his vision and his stylistic insistence that nobody else can copy, even though many have tried. even nostalghia, a film that is made outside of russia and mostly in the italian language feels like a film of his aesthetically and at a more primal level. it retains much of the same rhythm and the same stylistic devices that he has become famous for. that is not to say that his films don't feel distinct, at the same time. i'm never really struck by the sense that he is just repeating the same film over and over again. there are nuances within each of the film that marks it as different both aesthetically, as well as in regards to the narrative. those complexities and nuances within the film are things to enjoy. there is always a balance between the feelings of familiarity and freshness when it comes to the work of andrei tarkovsky. this film, at its most basic level, is about a russian writer that travels to italy in order to research the life of a famous composer that died there. of course, the plot of this film doesn't really matter as much as the primal rhythms that the film has and the visuals that it revels in. in fact, some of the plot details and the narrative structure of the film were lost on me because i was so caught up in the rhythms and the visuals of the film. tarkovsky has a way of crafting a very hypnotic pace. he is able to draw you into his films and keep you entranced within the worlds that he is creating that you end up drifting in and out of the plot. there is something about that experience that i don't find that any other filmmaker can do for me. there is something about his style and the way that he crafts films that no words can really describe. the experience itself is something to seek out, even if i am not able to understand exactly how it is working at a basic level to achieve that. some of the shots here are just ravishingly beautiful. there are some shots in this film that will stick around in my memory long after i've seen them. the visuals feel familiar as we have seen many similar ones over the course of his filmography but they still amaze me by how beautiful and stunning they can be. yet, this is a simple, beautiful, and haunting film. sometimes i don't feel present within the film when i watched this movie. i felt as if i was drifting in and out of it at times. however, that seems to be the type of experience that this film is trying to create. it isn't going for something that we see often in other films and i admire it for that. and there really is a lot to appreciate and enjoy with this film. i don't think that it ended up having the same impact that many of his other films, such as stalker or andrei rublev, had on me. however, there is still much to enjoy and take in with this film and that is always a welcome experience.