The Sacrifice

Sven Nykvist liked a photograph taken by Tarkovsky, with the sun’s reflection in the camera. Sitting on the set: Andrei Tarkovsky, Susan Fleetwood, Sven Nykvist, and Erland Josephson.

’The Sacrifice’ is a stunningly beautiful film that holds your attention even while you feel slightly stunned, in a less welcome way, by what is actually going on. Andrei Tarkovsky, the Soviet expatriate director and writer of this work, which was made in Sweden, owes a lot to two veterans of the Ingmar Bergman troupe – Sven Nykvist, who did the photography, and the actor Erland Josephson, who manages at moments to achieve the sense of profundity for which the movie strives. And strives and strives every instant of its nearly two and a half hours of running or drifting time.’ – from the New York Times review on 7 November, 1986