Tarkovsky's story is one of creativity triumphing over political
oppression. Working in Russia during the Kruschev and Brezhnev eras,
his films were viewed with suspicion by the state and often denied a
release at home or abroad until years after their completion. Despite
this, Tarkovsky produced eight features, directing with rare
imagination, an iconoclastic approach to narrative structure and a
critique of authoritarianism subtle enough to evade the censor's
scalpel. His poetic imagery, fascinating in its complexity and
pregnant with private meaning, has a dreamlike quality which fills
even his bleakest work with a radiant luminosity.
