It is his birthday. He plants a tree, carefully, methodically.
There is a belief that it is impossible to plant a tree without thinking of your own lifespan, because in all certainty the tree will be there long after you have gone. As he plants the tree, his small son watches him and then toddles thoughtlessly about on the surface of the planet he does not yet know is a planet.
Some people came to the birthday party: the man's wife, his daughters, some friends and a mailman who apparently is the island's mystic. There is a sense in which he delivers the cosmic mail, bringing news of inner realities. During the party, the news comes that the war has broken out.
All of this is told slowly, in elegantly composed shots, with silences in between. When the characters speak, it is rarely to engage in small talk; the hero has a long monologue about the quality of our lives and the ways we are heedlessly throwing away the futures of our children. When the man begs to make his sacrifice, he does so not by ranting and raving to heaven, but by choosing one of his own maids - a humble working woman - as a sort of saintly person who might be able to intervene.
"The Sacrifice" is not the sort of movie most people will choose to see, but those with the imagination to risk it may find it rewarding. Everything depends on the ability to empathize with the man in the movie, and Tarkovsky refuses to reach out with narrative tricks in order to involve us. Some movies work their magic in the minds of the audience; this one stays resolutely on the screen, going about its urgent business and leaving us free to participate only if we want to.
That is the meaning of a sacrifice, isn't it - that it is offered willingly?
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7s7vGnqmempWnwW%2BvzqZmq52mnrK4v46tn55lo5aws7XFopqeZWFuhXc%3D