Tarkovsky's "The Steamroller and the Violin"
 

I have purchased and reviewed <B>The Steamroller and the Violin DVD</B> from Facets...

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<B> CLICK HERE TO ACCESS MY COMPLETE GRAPHIC REVIEW</B>
28 year-old Andrei Tarkovsky's 43 minute diploma film from the All-Union State Cinema Institute, entitled "The Steamroller and the Violin" has come to Region 1 DVD. This easy to view, versatile format is a blessing to his legion of cinema fans in the west who crave and obsess on his small body of only seven full length features completed prior to his death in December of 1986. The film was co-written by Tarkovsky's fellow student, Andrei Konchalovsky. It took them six months to complete the script.

The colors are soft yet contain full deep blues and defined edges, not unlike some Technicolor. There are a number of hairs and cue blips appearing onscreen at times. The dialogue is in Russian with clear yellow, non-removable English subtitles. The sound is very clear with negligible errors.

Flaws, only a few: the cover has our lead character playing with his wrong hand. With the abbreviated length of the film, it would have been more than appropriate to include a documentary, interviews, commentary, trailers etc. to the DVD extras. The text based biography is well done but sadly slight considering the market of this product (keen Tarkovsky fans). Grateful that it has been brought to DVD Region 1, but craving more in the area of supplements

Hey Gary!

Good to see you in these parts again ;)

I saw Steamroller & the Violin a while back, but I thought it was too stereotypically Soviet for my taste. At that time, Tarkovsky still hasn't established his own style yet. Too much of the "rah-rah proletariat" in this film for me. Of course, this is intentional because it's a student film, but IMO it's not exactly that important a work.

Hey Raymond,

How are you doing? Where are you now? Hong Kong? Drop me an e-mail!:)

Can you explain ?
I didn't put over emphasis on the "work-er" related themes... but I did enjoy the threats of temptation... and the man/child bonding.

I thought it was a fantastic short!... much better than I was anticipating...