The Sacrifice [1986]
1. He is a collector of incidents.
2. The story about the garden.
3. The house, engulfed in flames, collapses. And–cut.
The title of the film describes what the audience must make in order to watch it. It’s all intellect and no soul. I think one of the reasons I like STALKER so much is that Tarkovsky concentrates so much on the environment and atmosphere, which he excels at; the human elements don’t feel central to that movie. But THE SACRIFICE is all blah, blah, blah, as Tarkovsky painfully beats us over the head again and again with philosophizing characters, so that we won’t possibly doubt the Extreme Seriousness of Deciding to Live by Faith. Sven Nykvist’s cinematography is gorgeous, but at the same time completely distances us from the characters onscreen. Not that these people resemble real human beings at all. THE SACRIFICE has several amazing images but watching it was a maddening experience.
RandomCha 
Sounds like you need to see the film again in order to understand it.
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It’s not that I don’t understand it. I just don’t feel any emotional connection to the sacrifice at the center of the story. A movie like the “The Road,” for instance, or even Tarkovsky’s own “Stalker” are so much more involving. You can feel the weight of what’s at stake.
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