THE AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL SITUATION IN 'ZERKALO' ('THE MIRROR') BY ANDREI TARKOVSKI (Sytuacja autobiograficzna w Zwierciadle Andrieja Tarkowskiego)

The article discusses autobiographical plots of the movie 'The Mirror' by Andrei Tarkovski. The autobiographism is here the starting-point to contemplate the world and the presence of a man in it. The autobiographical situation may be understood as the submersion in temporality and spatiality of the world in order to establish - with the help of cultural act of self-reading - the category of individual life ('bios') and transcend it in the pursuit of universal life (eternity). According to creative philosophy of the Russian director, the real life has its sense and source in eternity. Tarkovski's film perpetuates time as life; time by the matter of the art transforms into eternal memory. Tarkovski's movie art appears therefore as an attempt of portraying and overcoming the conflict between the spiritual and historical worlds. The article points to a connection of Tarkovski's artistic search and his conception of the art together with philosophic and religious reflection of Russian thinkers such as Pavel Florensky or Nikolai Berdyaev.