Alexander is a once-renowned actor who has stepped away from the stage to work as a journalist, critic, and lecturer on aesthetics. He lives in a beautiful seaside house with his actress wife Adelaide, his stepdaughter Marta, and his young son, the quiet Little Man, who is temporarily mute after a throat operation. The family’s calm routine is punctured when Alexander and Little Man plant a tree by the shore, a moment that seeds a growing unease about the world around them.
Their world shifts when Alexander’s friend Otto, a part‑time postman and amateur psychical investigator, brings a birthday card and a casual reminder of life’s fragile edges. Otto’s visit prompts an exchange about faith, as Alexander bluntly admits that his relationship with God feels “nonexistent.” Soon after, the arrival of Victor, a medical doctor and a close family friend who helped Little Man after the operation, brings a plan to drive the family home in Victor’s car. Yet Alexander, unsettled, chooses to stay behind to speak more with his son, resisting the urge to leave their tranquil refuge.
What follows is a lengthy, intimate monologue in which Alexander recalls how he and Adelaide discovered their house by the sea—how they fell in love with its setting and its surroundings—before turning that fond memory into a bitter meditation on the state of modern humanity. He speaks of the pressures of change, the discord within the family, and a creeping fear of how technology seems to erode authentic human connection. The scene is punctuated by a troubling, impulsive moment when Little Man hides away, leaps onto his father’s back as a surprise, and is accidentally nose‑bleeded by Alexander’s reflexive swat.
As the narrative voice turns toward reflection, Tarkovsky’s influence is evident: Alexander has “grown to hate the emptiness of human speech,” a weariness that shadows every interaction. The dinner-tide at the house among the family, Victor, and Otto is interrupted by the blare of jet fighters overhead, and a news broadcast proclaims the onset of what appears to be World War III—a nuclear‑tinged horror that unsettles every pulse in the room. Adelaide’s nerves fracture under the weight of fear, and Victor must comfort and sedate her, while Alexander drifts toward a stark vow: he will renounce all he loves, including Little Man, if such an act could undo the impending catastrophe.
Otto suggests a perilous route to escape: a liaison with Maria, described as a witch “in the best possible sense.” Following this advice, Alexander steals a pistol from Victor’s medical bag, leaves a note behind, and rides off on Otto’s bike toward Maria’s house. He confesses a haunting memory about tending his mother’s garden—how he once fixed it up to bring order, only to see it lose its beauty in his meddling. Maria receives his advance with bewilderment, yet when he places the gun to his temple and begs, “Don’t kill us, Maria,” the jet‑fighter noises surge again, and she calms him. They share a transformative, ethereal coupling as they float above her bed, a sequence whose meaning remains cloudy and ambiguous in his wake.
Morning light reveals a return to a fragile normalcy, yet Alexander is not cured. He sets a plan in motion to relinquish all that he loves again, luring the others outside for a walk and then setting the family’s house ablaze. When the flames spread, the group races back, and Alexander loudly confesses to the act, his fear and determination visible in every gesture. Maria emerges unseen before, and Alexander’s attempt to approach her is blocked by those around him. An ambulance arrives, two paramedics surge forward, and they drive away with him as if he has already slipped beyond control.
Maria departs on her bicycle, while Little Man remains at the foot of the tree, watering it in quiet ritual. The final image anchors the moment in a stark, almost devotional line: the mute child’s question, echoing the opening of a sacred text, lands with a final, haunting clarity.
> "In the beginning was the Word. Why is that, Papa?"
