This most personal work of Tarkovsky is a mixture of childhood memories, newsreels, and poems by Tarkovsky's father, and the archetypal Tarkovsky film. During a severe nervous breakdown, the main character relives his youth. Images of his beloved mother, his first girlfriend, and the house of his childhood pass by. Nostalgia, melancholy, and dreams: Tarkovsky called The Mirror his most personal film - which did not prevent the audience from writing angry letters to the director criticizing the "hermetic nature" of the film. The film faced such resistance from the Soviet authorities that Tarkovsky considered quitting directing. Letters from supporters prevented him from doing so. In the introduction to Sculpting in Time, he quotes such a letter: "I am grateful to you for The Mirror. I had exactly such a youth. How could you know that?". The Mirror is certainly complex: present and past intertwine, the script is erratic, and the acting is often improvised. The Mirror is therefore the archetypal Tarkovsky film, in which the human soul metaphysically rises above gently waving fields of wheat. "I believe that healing arises from a spiritual crisis," wrote Tarkovsky, "a spiritual crisis is an attempt to find oneself."