Tarkovsky’s last Soviet film, which became one of the most important sci-fi films in history.
Strange phenomena have begun to appear in area where a meteorite fell to Earth. The territory is designated a forbidden zone and is surrounded by the armed forces and barbed wire. Rumor has it that deep in the Zone there is a room where wishes come true. The Professor and the Writer set off for the room, each for their own reasons, and are accompanied by a Stalker, who is driven by a desire to help people once again find belief in the world around them.
The film Stalker has long been famous even outside the world of cinema. The images of the exclusion zone anticipated the Chernobyl disaster and formed the basis of the eponymous video game. For years, the film’s postapocalyptic vision defined Soviet, post-Soviet, and even international sci-fi cinema, particularly that of Konstantin Lopushansky, who worked on Stalker. Tarkovsky’s concept of «sculpting in, ” first fully embodied in Stalker, had an enormous influence on global cinema and the deep understanding of the essence of cinema. It is no exaggeration to say that the «slow cinema» of the twenty-first century mostly originates from this film by Tarkovsky, which is often cited. The dramatic story of the film’s appearance has become a myth in itself. The project took several years to make, and for various reasons the film was completely re-shot several times, changing its concept and team (the stock for one version of the film was mysteriously destroyed while being developed). On set, Tarkovsky fell out with one of the best Soviet cameramen, Georgy Rerberg, with whom he had worked on Mirror. This is the subject of the two-hour documentary Rerberg and Tarkovsky: The Reverse Side of «Stalker» (even so, part of the material Rerberg shot made it into the final version of the film). The Strugatsky brothers’ work on the script was the most exhausting of their career. The text was rewritten dozens of times and was then changed on set. Gradually, almost all of the sci-fi elements were removed from the original work, Roadside Picnic, and the Stalker was transformed from a bandit and crook into a yurodivy (God’s fool), brilliantly played by Alexander Kaidanovsky. The only thing remaining from the original was the Zone as a mystical space for meeting your own self and for seeking meaning and faith in a collapsing world. All of the difficulties, doubts, and intellectual tension can be felt in every shot of the resulting film, which was destined to turn science fiction away from futuristic utopias toward existential philosophical parables.
Stalker
Director Andrey Tarkovsky
USSR, 1979, 162 min. 12+
