Stalker (1979)

Writters: Arkady and Boris Strugatsky

*SPOILER FREE

"My purpose is to make films that will help people to live, even if they sometimes cause unhappiness." ~ Andrei Tarkovsky.

Stalker is a philosophical, psychological sci-fi art film following the protagonist - Stalker, a spiritually desperate husband and father, as he guides two clients, one called the writer and the other is the professor, into a forbidden area known as "the zone" in which there's a room, a place where it's believed to grant one's most cherished desires.

I would symbolize it simply as; art (the writer) and science (the professor), led by hope (Stalker), are on a quest for salvation, a voyage of discovering the essence of one's soul, a leap into the abyss of the unknown.

Depicting perhaps the greatest quest of the human history, the longing for spirituality and the search for God, in a slow, mythological, and an enchanting narrative that you are there in the story, and not merely watching someone else living it.

Visually atmospheric and mesmerizing, and spiritually hypnotic. Harmonious between black-and-white and color, and transcendent with acting like no other.

Not only Tarkovsky and his team struggled in the most difficult circumstances and devastation that went into making Stalker that they had to re-shoot the film three times for lack of proper gear and film stock. Andrei Tarkovsky, his wife, and several members of the crew and cast would slowly pass away from cancer and illnesses, in the years after, due to the hazardous chemicals and radiation they were working around during shooting.

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Tarkovsky is known for his spiritual, metaphysical, psychological, philosophical and hypnotic themes approaching topics such as faith, love, hope, memory, existentialism, nature, meaning of life, behavior, time and death.

He's also known for his slow pacing and long takes, all of his features are art-house films. Not very entertaining and typically exciting, rather, his works are spiritually enriching and mindfully illuminating. Entering his realm is like going into a masterclass with Dostoevsky.

Though each of his 7 - equally masterful - features deserve a spot of their own in this series. I do take his filmography as a complete body of work.

Here I include the rest of Andrei Tarkovsky's filmography as honorable mentions (in a chronological order):

Ivan's Childhood (1962), Tarkovsky's debut, anti-war, authentic and ambitious, a poetic depiction of war and the cost of war.

Andrei Rublev (1966), set in the fifteenth century in medieval Russia, a biography of the painter and saint Andrei Rublev, his art, freedom, religion and politics. Though it is stunningly beautiful I founded the hardest to watch, however my perspective on cinema, on life is never the same after watching it.

Solaris (1972), it's been called "the Russian 2001: A Space Oddessy", its depiction of nature, politics, psychology and love is mesmerizing. Its Bach inspired music makes it such a spiritual and divine experience.

The Mirror (1975), this is the most personal Tarkovsky work. His autobiography. This is widely considered as Tarkovsky's best work.

Nostalgia (1983), this is one of the more personal works of Tarkovsky's, it's important to know before watching it that almost 6 years before Tarkovsky died in 1986 he started traveling - exiled - to Italy and decided to never go back to the Soviet Union. No better way to describe it than its title.

The Sacrifice (1986), Tarkovsky's last masterpiece, I would describe it as the word of wisdom, the maturity and boldness of film-making in this one are remarkable.

I watched them all in a chronological order and I highly recommend doing the same to experience the evolution of Tarkovsky's art and film-making.

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Available to watch on The Criterion Collection, HBO Max, Apple TV, and on Amazon Prime Video

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