The film opens with a confusing scene about an ultimately disastrous hot air balloon ride opposed by a mob, presumably for religious reasons. This scene has no direct bearing on the remainder of the film, though it sets the tone of medieval Russia as an unhappy place to live, unless you are a Tatar marauder.
Indeed, Russia is a land of plagues, famines, civil unrest, and ignorance. It's all rather depressing, and when it isn't raining, it's snowing. In this environment are three monks: Andrei Rublev (Anatoliy Solonitsyn), a talented painter; Daniil (Nikolay Grinko), his sometime assistant; and Kirill (Ivan Lapikov), an educated man but contentious and jealous of Rublev.
Rublev and Daniil are called upon to paint icons in a Vladimir cathedral under the direction of aged Theophanes the Greek (Nikolai Sergeyev). Their commission is to paint the Last Judgement, but Rublev finds the subject disagreeable. The town is overrun by Tatar invaders who rape the women and murder the men. For some reason they pay no attention to Rublev, even after he kills a Tatar for attempting to rape Durochka (Irma Raush), a simpleton peasant regarded as a Holy Fool.
To atone for his murder, Rublev begins a vow of silence which he keeps up for many years. He returns to his old monastery and is reunited with Kirill. He becomes interested in the activities of Boris (Nikolay Burlyaev), an immature teenager in charge of building a great bell for a new cathedral. Boris will be beheaded if he fails, and though full of false bravado, it is obvious that he has inherited little if any of his late father's skills as a bellmaker.
How others will see it. Director Tarkovsky already had a strong Western reputation based on several earlier films. This helped ensure a warm reception for Andrei Rublev. It won the FIPRESCI Prize at Cannes and has generally been regarded as Tarkovsky's masterpiece, though his other works are equally or even more popular. In Soviet Russia, the film was less successful, despite cuts (that have since been restored) to the lengthy running time.
Andrei Rublev marked the feature debut for Anatoliy Solonitsyn, who played the lead role and subsequently became one of Russia's most heralded actors. Solonitsyn made additional films with Tarkovsky, and their partnership ended only with Solonitsyn's premature death. Sadly, Tarkovsky also died at a fairly young age.
Today, Andrei Rublev is frequently reviled for its depicted animal cruelty. A dog is beaten to death, dogs are set upon each other, a cow is set on fire, and a horse is forced down a flight of stairs and stabbed. These are unacceptable acts in the West, though I suppose in 15th century Russia they are merely representative of the many hardships of life. Men are also mistreated, for example, molten metal is poured down a man's throat.
Apart from the disturbing animal cruelty, some dislike the movie for its length and many long conversations between middle-aged bearded men.
Today at imdb.com, the user ratings are extremely high overall at 8.3. But there are broad divides among demographics. For example, women over 45 grade it just 4.7 out of 10, while men under 30 grade it 8.4. Those outside the U.S. also grade it significantly higher than do Americans, 8.5 versus 7.4. Perhaps American viewers are alienated by the captions and cultural distance. Older women may dislike that the only consequential female character (Durochka) is a mute idiot.
How I felt about it. My favorite portion of the film is the saga of infant terrible Boris and his pretense of bellmaking. It gives him an importance he does not deserve, but it also literally puts his neck on the line should he fail. Rublev seems to like his nerve, as well.
Rublev the character is more interesting to me than Rublev the painter. Rublev's art is priceless cultural antiquity, but let's face it, he's no Rembrandt.
Fortunately for us, Rublev the character, as played by the charismatic and compelling Solonitsyn, is more interesting. He is an observer of life, intermittently obligated to paint when he would prefer to perform mundane chores at the monastery. It seems that Rublev is the only person who realizes that his paintings are not so amazing after all.
Also interesting is the fatalist Russian perspective. It is incomprehensible to Americans, who maintain a pretense of self relevance even if they can only scrape out an existence. Of course, plague, famine, and barbarian invasions are thankfully outside of American cultural experience, though they still occur in other regions of the world. But Americans "know" that it can't happen here, in their neighborhood. This smugness makes it difficult for them to commiserate with those born in less fortunate situations.