Corporeality and Transcendence: Physicality, Suffering, and Eroticism in Andrei Tarkovsky’s Andrei Rublev
Yannis Mitsou | Hellenic Open University
ORCiD ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1690-3031
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.71106/DRXE2411
Publication: Volume 6 Issue 4
Abstract | This essay explores the relationship between the notion of corporeality in its various connotations, notably its aesthetic aspects, and the iconography of Andrei Tarkovsky’s Andrei Rublev (1966). The focus on the individual that struggles to achieve the desired transcendence through both artistic production and the gradual development of a conscious poetic relationship to everyday life has interesting philosophical connotations: our focus is not as much on the spiritual aspects of this exploration, as in the corporeal, sensual element that is carefully linked with natural environment in Tarkovsky’s narratives. In Tarkovsky’s films, and Andrei Rublev in particular, the desired transcendence is achieved through the flesh, through the focus on the human body. In this respect, phenomenology proves to be more than a tool for reading the film: the relationship between the present (difficult to approach) and the past (both collective, manifested in culture, and personal, approached through memory) lies at the heart of the film. The relationship between such philosophical concerns and the iconography of the film, the reconstruction of a medieval time, notably depicted as direct and approached through the senses rather than distant like an ideological construction, will be explored through the lens of poetry, perceived as a way to approach everyday life and an almost fetishistic visual and narrative emphasis on a physical violence, the other face of sensuality.
Key words | Flesh, Corporeality, Transcendence, Violence, Phenomenology, Physicality, Perception, Eroticism, Andrei Tarkovsky, Andrei Rublev.
Yannis Mitsou (giannismitsou@gmail.com; ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1690-3031) is a Film Philosophy Teaching Associate in the Hellenic Open University, Greece, where he teaches a Film Narrative course in the Creative Writing Masters programme at the Humanities Department since 2018, and a Film Philosophy course in the Film Studies Department since 2023. He completed his MA from the Department of Film Studies (Philosophy Pathway) of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at King’s College London in 2015. He completed his Ph.D. studies (with distinction) on the notions of Transcendence and Corporeality on the films of Andrei Tarkovsky from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens in 2020. His academic interests include Film Aesthetics, especially the relationship between various traditions of European Philosophy and Cinema
MLA Citation for this Article:
Mitsou, Yannis. “Corporeality and Transcendence: Physicality, Suffering, and Eroticism in Andrei Tarkovsky’s Andrei Rublev.” Language, Literature, and Interdisciplinary Studies, vol. 6, no. 4, 31 Dec. 2025, pp. 2.1–2.20, https://doi.org/10.71106/DRXE2411.