The Sacrifice (1986) on Netflix
Alexander lives by the sea with his wife Adelaide and their young son, who cannot speak after an operation. His birthday celebration is interrupted when nuclear war is announced.
- Netflix3.5/5
- IMDb7.8/1035,585 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes86%
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Plot summary
Alexander gave up the stage to write journalism and lecture on aesthetics. He lives in a house near the sea with his actress wife Adelaide, his stepdaughter Marta and his young son, whom the family calls Little Man and who is temporarily mute after a throat operation. He and the boy plant a tree, and his friend Otto arrives with a birthday card and asks about his relationship with God; Alexander says there is none. Guests gather for the celebration, among them Victor, the doctor who operated on the boy. Low-flying jets interrupt them, and a news program announces that a nuclear war has begun. Adelaide breaks down and Victor sedates her. Alexander vows to renounce all he loves if the war can be undone, and Otto speaks of Maria, whom he calls a witch.
Cast
- Filippa Franzénas Marta
- Tommy Kjellqvistas Gossen
- Per Källmanas Ambulansförare
- Tommy Nordahlas Ambulansförare
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Sacrifice (1986)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
SPOILER
The climactic burning-house scene had to be shot twice: the first attempt was ruined when the single camera, used despite Sven Nykvist's protest, jammed. The house was rebuilt in two weeks, and the version in the film is a six-minute second take filmed with two cameras running on parallel tracks.- Andrei Tarkovsky wanted his frequent collaborator Anatoly Solonitsyn for the lead, as he had for Nostalghia, but Solonitsyn died of cancer in 1982. Tarkovsky then rewrote the screenplay into The Sacrifice and shot Nostalghia with Oleg Yankovsky instead.
- Tarkovsky was diagnosed with cancer after filming ended and was too ill to attend the film's presentation at the Cannes Film Festival, where The Sacrifice won the Grand Prix, his second after 1972's Solaris.
- The Sacrifice is often wrongly said to have been shot on Fårö, but it was actually filmed at Närsholmen on the nearby island of Gotland because the Swedish military denied Tarkovsky access to Fårö.
- In post-production Tarkovsky and cinematographer Sven Nykvist removed much of the colour from selected scenes, and Nykvist said almost 60% of the colour was taken out of them.
