Nostalghia: Crisis of the Present

The following is a case study which focuses on the theme of “Reflective Nostalgia” as addressed by the Russian film maker Andrei Tarkovsky in his movie, Nostalghia (1983). A contemporary human unable to live in the time-space compression, turns his eyes to the past to construct shelters for himself. The study examines the relationship between an individual perception with that of his outside world and conceptualises the conflicting situation between his memories and desires.

The situation metonyms the critique of Angelus Novus by Walter Benjamin where he identifies the painting as a melancholic view of history and witnesses his own cycle of despair in it. He calls, that the angel, caught up in a violent storm blowing from the paradise (future), turns his back on it and now has his eyes staring at the past while his present being, swirls in the debris of this perpetual storm.

Since, the conflict arises inside a contemporary human being, his memories (past) and his desires (present), are lost in the crisis of modernity resulting in a fragmented memory and an isolated experience where the human being alienates himself from his surroundings and agonises in silence.