Spiritual crises in The Sacrifice

Abstract

Tarkovsky’s The Sacrifice is thus a profound statement on spiritual loss and the fallen ungrateful nature of mankind who have turned their back on God and Christ’s atoning sacrifice. This is captured in the Nietszchean philosophy and profoundly mundane and materialistic ways the Swedish family is caught up with in the film – lost and in need of redemption, yet ungrateful and unworthy of redemption when the sacrifice is made. Tarkovsky’s sacrifice is thus an indictment of the profound spiritual destitution of modern urban ways of living and the decline of faith in Europe.