In exile, Andrei Tarkovsky filmed The Sacrifice in Sweden (collaborating with Ingmar Bergman’s cinematographer Sven Nykvist). The film’s theme is a grand, urgent one: the lack of spirituality in modern times. A writer living on a remote island has his birthday celebration seemingly interrupted by the outbreak of World War III. In Tarkovsky’s elliptical and visionary world, the outcome is indeterminate; but the opening condition of fear and the later weight of prayer are palpable. Of Tarkovsky, Ingmar Bergman has said:"He is for me the greatest, the one who invented a new language, true to the nature of film, as it captures life as a reflection, life as a dream."