Nostalgia

At a spa in the Tuscan Hills, a Russian poet and musicologist, researching the life of an 18th century composer, meets a mysterious man who is convinced that the end of the world is nigh. The Russian, Andrei Gorchakov (Oleg Yankovsky), is asked to cross an ancient sulphur pool carrying a lighted candle as an act of faith. Tarkovsky's first film outside the USSR is full of personal and Christian symbols and works as a study of such themes as memory, melancholia and disenchantment with the material world. (Kino Lorber)