The past: "Nostalgia"

Tarkovsky's penultimate feature - and his first shot outside his native Russia - 1983's Nostalgia presents as a challenge to the audience. Some of it plays out in leached, low-level colour: the movements of a writer (Oleg Yankovsky) who's come to Italy to research the life of an exiled Russian musician, pairing up en route with a tempestuous guide (Domiziana Giordano, her red hair reduced to pale straw in this light) and falling in with an eccentric local (Erland Josephson) who's alleged to have kept his family locked up for seven years while waiting for the end of the world to come about. Yet this travelogue is sporadically interrupted by black-and-white images that either speak to the characters' pasts or to the musician's life, and forever seem more like filmed dreams or daydreams. While we puzzle out how these fit into the grand design - warning: there may be no easy answer - we're taken on a tour of Italian locations that could conceivably double as headspaces. Tarkovsky floods his every other set-up with fog, steam or rain, suggesting memories in the process of being washed or otherwise eroded away; even the overdubbing, a practical consequence of shooting Russian, Italian and Swedish leads from a distance, adds to the prevailing air of unreality.

The result is one of those movies over which critics and laypersons will eternally come to blows. With my critic's hat on, I can admire the framing, the sinuous camera movement, the bold choices with colour; there are two or three mid-scene lighting changes that are genuinely revelatory. The one aspect that no-one can refute, and which may provide Nostalgia's saving grace as a viewing experience: its imagemaking is consistently remarkable. You also need to be aware, however, that there are long pauses to soak up the atmosphere - and the atmosphere is often that of a wet Wednesday afternoon in a two-star hotel room. Yes, Tarkovsky succeeds in bringing us within touching distance of the emotion enshrined in the title, but even with that same critic's hat on, Nostalgia can feel a cold, rather bloodless, predominantly technical achievement, much like one mid-movie cut from a man setting himself alight to a candle being being lit. By this point, Peter Greenaway was entering this field with films that explored similar ideas and themes with wit, cheek and narrative verve, and characters who were too damn fleshy to ever feel like the free-floating cyphers we encounter here. Tarkovsky had one more movie in him - 1986's apocalyptic The Sacrifice, returning to UK screens next week, which took the Josephson character here and ran for the hills with him - but the world and its cinema was rapidly moving on.

Nostalgia returns to selected cinemas from Friday.