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The brilliance of Nostalghia lies in Andrey Tarkovsky's ability to visualize the translations between Andrey Gorchakov's different states of mind and the temporal structures of the nostalgic desires that entrap him. Here, San focuses on how Tarkovsly both visualizes the trope of translation and dramatizes it through the interactions among the film's three characters: Gorchakov, Eugenia, his translator, and Domenico, a local mad man.

I. Impossible Homelands

Shot in Italy prior to his exile from the Soviet Union, Andrey Tarkovsky's 1983 film Nostalghia remains his most ironic film. It tells the story of Andrey Gorchakov, a Russian poet living in Italy. He is researching the life of Pavel Sosnovsky, a Medieval Russian musician who lived most of his life exiled in Italy and committed suicide upon his return to Russia. In less than a year following its completion, Tarkovsky's own life began to resemble closely the life of his film's protagonist, as he would live in exile in Italy. Commenting on this similarity in his theoretical and autobiographical work, Sculpting in Time, Tarkovsky writes, "How could I have imagined as I was making Nostalghia that the stifling sense of longing that fills the screen space of that film was to become my lot for the rest of my life; that from now until the end of my days I would bear that painful malady myself?" (202).1 Although it remains ironic that nearly every shot of Nostalghia expresses these very same feelings of helplessness and rootlessness prior to Tarkovsky's actual experience of them, the accuracy to which Tarkovsky expresses those feelings is startling. An entry from his diary, for example, dated 25 May 1983 and written while in exile, reads, "A Bad day. Terrible thoughts. I'm frightened. I am lost! I cannot live in Russia, nor can I live here" (202). Nostalghia explores the very same question that haunts Tarkovsky's diary, as Gorchakov proves unable to live in Russia or Italy, his present torn apart by nostalgic desires.

But where can one live if one cannot live in either Russia or Italy? The stunning last image of Nostalghia provides an improbable solution to Gorchakov's inability to live anywhere by suggesting that he can only live in both Russia and Italy at the same time. To be sure, the imaginary spatiality implied by such an answer can exist only on film and in the film image. It is impossible, obviously, to live in Russia and Italy at the same time. Tarkovsky's own fate was to die in exile from cancer after the completion of his film The Sacrifice (1986). In Nostalghia, however, he grants Gorchakov's nostalgic longings an impossible synthesis: even if only in death, Russia and Italy are unified in the film's final image. But in order to properly understand the synthesis provided by the final image, it is essential to articulate the root causes of Gorchakov's nostalgia as they run deeper than his simple distance from home. As Tarkovsky states in Sculpting in Time, nostalgia overcomes Gorchakov because he remains unable "to find a balance between reality and the harmony for which he longs, in a state of nostalgia provoked not only by his remoteness from his country but also by a global yearning for the wholeness of existence (204-05). The addition of the latter cause complicates the temporality of Gorchakov's nostalgia: not only does his longing for a past homeland make his present unendurable, but his "yearning" for a future global Utopia also rips apart the present.

The brilliance of Nostalghia lies in Tarkovsky's ability to visualize the translations between Gorchakov's different states of mind and the temporal structures of the nostalgic desires that entrap him. Exploring how the trope of translation operates in key scenes throughout the film becomes central to understanding the redemptive synthesis Tarkovsky grants Gorchakov in the film's final image. I will focus on how Tarkovsky both visualizes the trope of translation and dramatizes it through the interactions among the film's three characters: Gorchakov, Eugenia, his translator, and Domenico, a local mad man.

II. Multiple Worlds and Untranslatable Art

Tarkovsky introduces the idea of the multiple worlds that inhabit singular spaces in three key moments early on in Nostalghia. The stunning opening sequence where Eugenia makes Gorchakov wait as she stops by a cathedral to see a painting of the Lady Madonna marks the audience's first encounter with the trope of translation between multiple worlds and different states of mind. Tarkovsky visualizes this encounter through a quick succession of shots that link different temporalities through eye-line matches that appear to mystically transcend spatial borders. One such instance occurs when Eugenia looks at the Lady Madonna painting. Tarkovsky first shows a close-up of Eugenia looking in the distance. Next, he cuts to the object of Eugenia's gaze, the icon of the Lady Madonna who looks back into the camera. On the soundtrack subtle sounds of water become apparent. The following image is a black-and-white shot of Gorchakov looking directly into the camera. As he turns his head, he picks up the feather that falls into the frame and looks at his Russian house in the distance.

The multiple gazes, and the multiple spaces inhabited by those gazes, converge in this sequence in such a way as to erase the material borders that exist between them. The fact that the icon of the Lady Madonna serves as the structural pivot between the gazes and the spaces shows how Tarkovsky cinematically constructs his spiritual concerns. That the Lady Madonna both is gazed upon and gazes suggests, for Tarkovsky, the existence of a spiritual presence that profoundly affects the world. It is through this spiritual realm that unification between Gorchakov's nostalgic desires can occur: the borders between the present, the distinctly Italian setting of the church, and the past, Gorchakov's Russian homeland, are erased.

Tarkovsky also draws parallels between the complex construction of looking and the exchange of glances in the church sequence with the scene that follows shortly thereafter. In this scene Gorchakov and Eugenia discuss the possibilities of translating poetry while sitting together in the dark lobby of their hotel. Gorchakov asks Eugenia what she is reading, and the following exchange occurs:

EUGENIA. Arseni Tarkovsky' s poems

GORCHAKOV. In Russian?

EUGENIA. It's a translation. Quite a good one.

GORCHAKOV. Throw it away.

EUGENIA. Why? The translator's a very good poet.

GORCHAKOV. Poetry is untranslatable, like the whole of art.

The fact that Gorchakov does not believe in the translatability of art or poetry indicates how deeply alienated his nostalgic feelings have made him.2 He remains trapped in a nightmarish in-between state, longing for both his past homeland and awaiting a future redemption. Thus, when Eugenia asks how poetry and art can become translatable and Gorchakov's responds, "By abolishing the frontiers between states," he articulates his desire to erase the present and collapse the spatial divide that tears him asunder. His response about frontiers also reinforces the idea that Gorchakov recognizes an abstract spiritual component to his nostalgia, as well as a political component. Yet, as the shots that immediately follow make clear, "the frontiers between states" that Gorchakov wants to abolish are mainly spiritual. After answering Eugenia, Gorchakov pauses and then turns his head toward her, and by doing so, looks into the camera. The next image is a close-up of the back of the head of Gorchakov's wife. She is drinking as she stares into the distance. The sound of a dog barking also becomes apparent on the soundtrack. Tarkovsky then cuts to a shot of Eugenia as she adjusts her hair and turns her head left to look at a woman with her dog who enters the room and walks through the space that separates Eugenia's and Gorchakov's chairs.

The stunning merger of form and theme in this brief sequence complicates Gorchakov's refusal of the possibilities of artistic translation. His tendency to collapse real and imaginary spaces suggests he can only achieve translation, or abolish frontiers, in the former by re-inscribing them in the latter. In particular, the eye-line and perspective matches between the shots, as well as the insertion in the sequence of Gorchakov's wife in Russia, shows that Gorchakov can mentally collapse the borders between the object of his nostalgia and his present. He is able to imagine his wife in the place of Eugenia. Thus, even if only for a brief moment, his past homeland can occupy the present. Yet, as the sequence continues the camera pulls back, emphasizing the physical distance between Gorchakov and Eugenia, while the woman with the dog walks through the room. The ironic construction of space, in particular the separation between Gorchakov and Eugenia, reinforces the fact that Gorchakov's imaginary translations do nothing to change the frontiers that exist in the real world.

Following his discussion with Eugenia, Gorchakov retires to bed and has a dream that further emphasizes his ability to achieve translation only in an imaginary realm. Even before the dream begins, Tarkovsky cues into the possibility of multiple worlds converging. As Gorchakov begins to fall asleep, a dog enters the room from the bathroom and sits next to the bed. The appearance of the dog becomes more opaque considering Tarkovsky shows Gorchakov in the bathroom moments before lying in bed. It becomes impossible to determine from whence the dog originates. Like the shots of the Lady Madonna in the film's opening sequence, the dog becomes a spiritual pivotal point that collapses, in a material realm, multiple worlds. Its sudden appearance foretells the spiritual bond between Gorchakov and Domenico, who is usually shown with his dog Zoe by his side, and points to the film's ambiguous final image where Gorchakov is shown once again with a dog.3

The convergence of worlds implied by the dog's appearance continues with Gorchakov's dream. It begins with his wife walking toward Eugenia. Eugenia turns around crying. Gorchakov's wife, who turns toward the camera, begins to comfort her. Whereas in his discussion with Eugenia on translation, Gorchakov was able to collapse his past into the present, here the distinctions between the past and present become completely indistinguishable. The two women, the past and the present, occupy the same space rather than one occupying the space of the other. Yet, as his dream continues, disruptions intrude into Gorchakov's imaginary act of translation. Following the shot of the women embracing, Tarkovsky cuts to a brief shot of Eugenia straddling the sleeping Gorchakov. The camera pans down to show Eugenia clenching the bed sheets, implying a sexual component to the image. But the frustrations expressed by Gorchakov's dream symbolize his nostalgic desires more than any particular displaced erotic desire for Eugenia. This becomes clear toward the end of the dream sequence where Tarkovsky repeats the shot of Gorchakov's wife comforting Eugenia. This time, however, Eugenia turns her head toward the camera and looks directly ahead. The next shot shows Gorchakov leaving his bed as his pregnant wife calls his name. The image begins with his wife lying in bed then slowly dissolves into an image of Gorchakov in bed as he wakes up from the sound of knocking on the door.

This sequence is stunning in part because it continues the association established earlier between looking and translation or crossing borders. The two shots of Gorchakov's wife comforting Eugenia suggest that their gazes into the camera are directed as much toward each other as they are toward Gorchakov. Although Eugenia and Gorchakov's wife momentarily occupy the same imaginary space, a frontier between the two gets re-established. The shot that re-establishes this frontier, Eugenia straddling Gorchakov, operates as a symbolic intrusion of something real in the sense that lying unresponsively underneath Eugenia mirrors Gorchakov's own real response toward both Eugenia and Italy. He remains deeply alienated from the latter and cannot or will not connect with the former despite her obvious attraction to him. His feelings of nostalgia override any desire he may have to establish a relationship to the present.

III. Gorchakov and Domenico: Russia and Italy Unified

Gorchakov and Domenico form the spiritual center of the film. Their relationship proves central to understanding Tarkovsky's motives and the concept of homeland that operates in Nostalghia. It also marks the end of the relationship between Gorchakov and Eugenia. The narrative are of the film undercuts Eugenia's symbolic role as a translator. She, in the end, only introduces the two men, between whom a more meaningful act of translation and communication will occur. The spiritual bond between the two men becomes apparent after Gorchakov sees Domenico by the spa-pools and wonders why people mock him. Even after hearing the story of how Domenico locked his family in their home for seven years to wait for the end of world, Gorchakov is not convinced of Domenico's madness. He asks Eugenia bluntly, "Why do they say he is mad? He's not mad. He has faith." Commenting on the bond the two men share, Tarkovsky writes in Sculpting in Time:

Gorchakov becomes attached to Domenico because he feels a deep need to protect him from the "public" opinion of the well-led, contented, blind majority for whom he is simply a grotesque lunatic. Even so, Gorchakov is not able to save Domenico from the role he has implacably assigned himself-without asking life to let the cup pass him by. (206)

Tarkovsky's description of the two men emphasizes the inevitable quality of their bond. The moment Gorchakov feels the need to save Domenico, he also must take up his cause to save the world. In the film, Domenico hopelessly tries to redeem the world by walking across the spa-pool with a lit candle, only to be removed by the patrons who fear he will drown. Gorchakov learns from Domenico that in order to overcome his nostalgic bind, his longing for his past homeland and future Utopia, he must collapse the difference between individual redemption and mass redemption into a single act. As Tarkovsky says, Gorchakov realizes, "that people must be rescued not separately and individually but all together from the pitiless insanity of modern civilization" (205). For Gorchakov, walking the candle across the pool becomes a mystical act of faith that allows for the convergence of the multiple worlds represented by his nostalgia to collapse into the present.

The extended sequence where Domenico gives Gorchakov the candle contains numerous examples of the translation between multiple worlds. In one especially startling moment, Gorchakov first enters Domenico's home, which has leaky ceilings and no floors. The camera pans to the terrain on the ground, which as the editing pattern implies, is a point of view shot from Gorchakov. As the camera pans closer, the terrain begins to resemble an abstract landscape of lakes, rivers, and mountains. Similar to the shots of the ocean world in Tarkovsky's Solaris (1972), the close-up of the terrain explores the mystical possibility of new worlds forming within already existing worlds.4 The point-of-view perspective of the shot also suggests that this is one of the few moments in the film where Gorchakov moves between worlds without doing so in an imaginary realm.

As the sequence continues, Tarkovsky emphasizes the tension Gorchakov feels between the need for personal and mass redemption. After entering Domenico's kitchen, Gorchakov stands in front of a large mirror and listens to the music being played. In a brilliant use of spatial discontinuity, Tarkovsky pans the camera leftward in the direction of Gorchakov's gaze. Yet, as the camera stops, Gorchakov becomes visible once again, this time standing in front of Domenico's shelves. The violation of the principle of identity, the suggestion that two Gorchakovs inhabit the same space, visualizes the logic of the nostalgic bind in which Gorchakov finds himself. He is already torn asunder. Acutely aware of his bind, since he suffers from it himself, Domenico offers a more Utopian violation of the principle of identity. Holding a bottle of oil and spilling drops on his finger, Domenico tells Gorchakov, "One drop plus one drop makes a bigger drop not two." It is by using such logic himself that Tarkovsky tries to unify, abstractly, Italy and Russia in the stunning last shot from Nostalghia.

Before leaving to return to Russia, Gorchakov stops at the spa-pool so he can walk across it with the candle. It is worth noting how the editing from the previous sequence emphasizes that Gorchakov's attempt to redeem the world represents an act of translation that is not imaginary. The scene cuts from the spa-pool, as Tarkovsky shows Domenico setting himself on fire as a protest against the spiritual crisis of modern life. As he writhes in pain on the ground, Tarkovsky cuts to a close-up of Gorchakov standing in the pool trying to light the candle. After several failed attempts at walking the candle across the pool, Gorchakov finally succeeds, only to fall over, dead. In the film's final shot, in black and white, Gorchakov is seated next to Domenico's dog in front of his Russian home. As the camera slowly dollies backward, it becomes clear that Gorchakov and his house are actually within the ruins of a large Italian cathedral shown previously in the film. It then begins to snow.

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If Gorchakov's walk across the pool is an attempt to converge the multiple worlds of his nostalgia, then it becomes significant to ask why the unification of Italy and Russia occur only in an imaginary realm. Gorchakov's death at the end of the film allows for no easy answers. The final image seems all at once too literal and too ambiguous, woefully pessimistic and hopefully Utopian. The use of black and white in the shot links it to the nostalgic images that haunt Gorchakov. It suggests that the unification of the contradictory spaces has occurred belatedly. The logic of his nostalgia has consumed itself. No unification has truly occurred because the past, in death, has consumed everything. There no longer is a future. And yet, the fact that Italy and Russia occupy the same space in the shot, even if it is only imaginary, imparts a Utopian element to the image. The image, in its failure, invites the viewer to ponder the limits of the possible and seek the methods to transcend those limits. How else could Tarkovsky unify Italy and Russia except in an imaginary realm? But perhaps we should not judge the image as a failure for occurring only in an imaginary realm. Rather, perhaps we should cherish the image and its impossible representation for what it ultimately signifies: the ability of art and the cinematic image to embody the contradictions associated with our human yearnings and desires, or as Tarkovsky says, to express "the ideal and man's aspiration towards the infinite." (Sculpting 238).