The Sacrifice

I’m thinking about movies that I love like 'Melancholia' and 'The Mirror' that are less concerned with plotting and more with creating a dream logic and kind of going into a subjective space.

Tarkovsky’s a big, big influence, obviously. The Sacrifice is a film I revisit often. That sense of a spiritual journey through very mundane, almost autobiographical elements, it’s extraordinary. I think that way of thinking about cinema, of embracing the sacred in the everyday, has always been very present in my work, especially in Post Tenebras Lux.

I watched a lot of Bresson, Bergman, Fellini, Tarkovsky. I remember The Sacrifice by Tarkovsky and how it impacted me. The spiritual quest, the long takes, the patience. All these films shaped me, and you can see those elements in Ida.

Tarkovsky. 'The Sacrifice,' especially. It's a film that profoundly impacted me. The way he approaches spiritual themes, the relentless pursuit of meaning, the visual poetry. That whole idea of a man’s journey, a spiritual and physical journey, definitely resonated with me when working on 'The Revenant'.