Stalker (1979)

“There are no such thing as facts. Especially here.”

If you have a short attention span and can only watch films with tits, explosions, rapid editing, and loud music, turn away now and go read my review for Tokyo Gore Police instead. This one’s a much different beast, and yet it’s my second favorite movie of all time. Every aspect of this movie resonates with me in a way I can't explain.

Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky, the Russian director responsible for the original Solaris (you may be familiar with the remake that has George Clooney in it), Stalker is a slow, quiet, thought-provoking film released in 1979, based off of a science fiction novel entitled Roadside Picnic.

The story is deliciously simple: Three men, a writer, a professor, and the titular Stalker (who refer to each other by their professions, you never get their real names) head out to a forbidden place called the Zone, in order to find a room where it is said your innermost wish will come true. The theory is that the Zone is a place that was hit with a meteorite, and the town that used to be there was obliterated, so the government roped it off. No one lives there. The only wildlife are birds, which are mostly just heard, rarely seen. Most everyone who was sent in, including the Russian military, never came out. People just disappear.

"My dear, our world is hopelessly boring. Therefore, there can be no telepathy, or apparitions, or flying saucers, nothing like that. The world is ruled by cast-iron laws, and it's insufferably boring. Alas, those laws are never violated. They don't know how to be violated. So don't even hope for a UFO, that would've been too interesting."

It’s also an incredibly beautiful place. The beginning of the movie is filmed in black and white, through a sepia filter, adding to the grit and dirt of the Stalker’s little shack, the rundown bar they meet up in, and the grungy military checkpoints they have to sneak and rush through in order to get into the Zone. 37 minutes in, when they finally reach the Zone, the film goes full color, so you can see it in all it’s splendor. The grass is incredibly tall, with a faint mist in the distance, and rundown old buildings that have been reclaimed by nature over time. The first thing this reminded me of are two of the most beautiful videogames I've ever played: Ico and Shadow of the Colossus. Gorgeous, desolate stretches of land with not a single soul in sight. The Stalker comments that it’s the quietest place in the whole world, and one can certainly agree, as all you hear are the twittering of birds and the beautiful, haunting score of the film. It’s all shot very beautifully, lovingly, with long takes and slow camera work that let you drink in the scenery and the characters.



As beautiful as it is, the Zone is also dangerous. It constantly shifts, mutates, like a labyrinth, and you cannot make a direct path to the room. "How far away is the room?" one of the characters asks the Stalker, who knows his way around, and he responds, "straight ahead, it's about 200 meters, but we cannot go straight." At one point he explains to them that the Zone does not allow good people or evil people to pass through it, only wretched men who have lost all hope. The Zone is treated like a creature, a living place. You never get a sense of just how dangerous it is, and that's probably one of the film's only flaws, but it is beautiful beyond what words can describe. The interiors themselves are amazing, old, ruined, and you just sense that there's...something in it. You know the place is alive, you can feel that it is a character just as much as the three men who are exploring it. There are weird bits too, like a telephone that mysteriously works, in a room that inexplicably has electricity, and a scene where the Zone actually supposedly speaks to Writer.

"You’re not even capable of thinking in abstractions."

Much of the dialogue is very poetic, philosophical. It’s rather dense stuff. Writer talks about how he fears he's losing inspiration, how he thinks of his readers, how men only write when they are in doubt. He’s a cynic and a skeptic, a bit of an ass, but still completely, utterly human. There's a beautiful monologue he delivers, sitting at a well in a huge, cavernous room where the floor is covered completely in sand dunes, after he traverses through a long, dark, terrifying tunnel referred to as the “meat mincer.” All three of the characters have incredibly wonderful, private, moving moments where their emotions and ideals are laid out bare for the viewer to see, and it's heart-wrenching. These are not young, plucky guys in their 20's, all three of them are aged, weathered, beaten men, far from ignorant, but not quite intellectuals. Just as Stalker says, wretched. I think it's something that the Zone brings out in them, that makes it so easy to see right into their hearts and know what their souls are like...



Once it was over, I could only just sit, and think, and breathe. It was amazing. I’ve watched it 3 times since then, finally acquiring a DVD copy as a Christmas gift just the other day, and it still never fails to hypnotize me and leave me thinking and musing. It is admittedly a very long, slow movie (around two and a half hours), where things happen more or less in real time, with long, continuous takes, and admittedly not a whole lot happens outside of the characters traversing the landscape while talking, but that doesn’t in any way diminish the experience.

Really, if you watch it, I mean, actually watch it, and it doesn't do anything to you, if it doesn't make you feel something deep inside of you, make you think, or anything...you are not human…

The film is easily found on Google Video in its entirety (this is how I watched it the first three times), and while it’s a little compressed and the timing with the subtitles is a tad off halfway through the film, it’s still worth it. The DVD has greatly improved audio and visuals, but the print they used wasn’t in the best condition, so there are some vertical lines that are pretty clear in certain shots, colors and lighting will fade in and out, but in all honesty, it does not diminish the experience at all. This is a must-see movie, especially if you consider yourself a bit of a film snob or connoisseur. Sit back, relax, and take it in. This is a true work of art.

[Brett]