Eisenstein and Vertov, despite technical and intellectual brilliance, have never been able to force their way into the upper pantheon of my personal canon of great filmmakers: names like Bergman, Kurosawa and Forman hold pride-of-place; names like Tsai, Egoyan and Wong wait patiently by the door, hoping that with time they will be allowed in. But what do these filmmakers have that the Soviet giants do not? Humanity, or more correctly, they don't portray humanity, or at least, they don't portray it in the personal and intimate way that gets my juices flowing. Theirs is a world of impersonal concepts; mine is a world of humanism. Andrei Tarkovsky's Andrei Rublev (1969), holds more in common with Ingmar Bergman's middle-ages-set films than with the films of his Soviet forebears.

Ostensibly the film is about the monk and religious icon painter, Andrei Rublev (Anatoli Solonitsyn), whom we follow through eight chapters of his life in 15th century Russia, in some of which he only figures peripherally. But, I think, the real subject is the relationship between art, faith and life, and the way that they jostle for prominence in our lives. Life in medieval Russia is hard: famine, plague and violent power struggles leave a path strewn with death and destruction. Faith in God, faith in one's fellow man, faith in one's artistic calling; all of these things are constantly tested. Jesters are beaten and tortured, pagans are persecuted by Christians, Christians are abused by pagans, massacres occur in churches. People need to believe in a higher power.

Visually, the film utterly stunning. Vadim Yusov's sumptuous Sovscope black and white photography beautifully captures the contrast between the ordered, spotless and decorative world of churches and cathedrals, and their gritty and earthy surroundings. The roaming, inquisitive camera almost becomes a character in itself, just managing to stay on the right side of the border between arresting and ostentatious (having said that, there is one crane-shot that appears to have escaped from a Brian De Palma movie.) The set-pieces are often quite breathtaking. The film opens with a man taking a hot-air balloon ride. We witness the incident from his point-of-view; the camera rises from the walls of a church and meanders over the surrounding countryside, before crashing to earth. It is a scene that transcends its subject matter; it is quite wonderful.

Another powerful set-piece revolves around a Tartar raid on the town of Vladimir, where Rublev is painting the church. The slaughter is merciless and is captured in great detail (animal lovers in particular may take offence at parts of this scene.) But there's no mistaking the scene's visceral power, and its perturbingly beautiful aftermath.

After so much destruction comes creation. The final episode revolves around the casting of a bell. Detailing the emotional and physical toil that come with creating a work of art, this scene both epitomises and is the epitome of Tarkovsky's masterpiece. Boriska (the excellent Nikolai Burlyayev), driven and tyrannical during its creation is, on its completion, completely drained. The bell gave him a reason to live, and now it's over. Why do we live? What do we live for? Art, beauty, love? I think that Tarkovsky's wordless, transcendent epilogue comes closest to answering these questions. The camera, now photographing in colour, explores Rublev's paintings to a climactic musical accompaniment; pain and suffering have given way to beauty. A stunningly beautiful masterpiece.