This film was screened as part of the event, Tarkovsky 6 Films, Master Works by a Master of Cinema, at the Kentucky Theatre, followed by a session with Raymond De Luca, who is an Assistant Professor of Russian Studies and International Film Studies at the University of Kentucky.
This is the film in the Tarkovsky canon that, from a personal perspective, I was most eager to finally watch in a theater. Stalker is in case you have not guessed, still a difficult film to engage in, but has more moments of acting and stylistic choices that are recognizable to more modern cinephiles. But still, a Tarkovsky film is a Tarkovsky film. Deeper meaning and the human psyche and struggle and the fight that is perpetually waged within it come first.
In an attempt to stalk the domestic Stalker, the guide takes a writer and a professor into a stalked, off-limits area known as “The Zone.” This zone is guarded by the government because there is a room inside it that, supposedly, grants the most cherished wish or desire of the person who enters it. Additionally, it is said that the laws of nature and physics do not exist in this zone. This vague description ceaselessly provides various opportunities and distractions for Tarkovsky, and his cameraman and friend, Aleksandr Knyazhinskiy, to take the audience on a journey around disguised circuits and notes showers.
One of the major concerns for the fans of STALKER is what the Zone IS. It has multiple interpretations, and this is almost certainly what Tarkovsky intends. There might very well be a clear equivalent to some sort of ecological catastrophe, especially considering how the Russian government tries to keep people away from the threat of death. From the perspective of the film’s themes, there is a probability that the zone is purgatory; some waiting area for a soul in between life and death awaiting judgment. This is the perspective I have always viewed this through. However, many scholars also look at the zone as simply the struggle to make meaning at all.
Let’s take a look at the purgatory side of it. The world before coming into the zone is boring, painful, and a battle. The stalker has arguments with his wife, the writer has a case of writer’s block, and the professor can’t make any sense of anything at all. Everything outside appears to move in ultra-slow motion and has a sepia filter over it for the illusion of heat. Those who are in power possess weapons pointed at the leaders of the world, poised to do more harm than good, and ready to bury the truth. The suffering on Earth from a Catholic perspective may indeed be true life in a prison. The moment the zone is penetrated, the surrounding nature is in full color and strikingly vivid. It is, however, not obviously wonderful nor angelic. At first, it seems pretty average through our eyes.
And there is the room itself. For some reason, we are set in the notion our heroes can make a wish, only to discover they are far from that. Our characters see this as blasphemous. What if a wicked individual was brought and caused destruction to the world? Should the room be destroyed? Turns out, there is an old stalker at the beginning of the film, a tale told, is rather noteworthy. Stalkers never set foot into the room, only one did.
Here, Porcupine stalked into the room hoping to save his dying brother. However, the room only grants you the things that you desire the most then. Porcupine was showered with wealth while his brother perished and only then did he realize the consequence of avarice.
We must also consider the three gentlemen. The Stalker, a man of the faith. The Writer is a man of the art. The Professor, a man of science. The professor attempts to nullify an evil as an academic exercise in thought, even a brutal one. The writer strives to come to terms with it through constant inquiry, an artistic endeavor. The stalker procures it as a matter of faith and endeavors to draw others in, a rather fundamental process. When The Stalker (Aleksandr Kaydanovskiy) is accused of doing so for self-serving purposes, he delivers a most moving monologue about his intent to help others that is bound to resonate with you. He later understands that the riches and class divide shut all of us off from real faith, and so he weeps with his wife after being rejected.
Stalker is able to draw a number of conclusions. One of them is that all these three representations of man are at once requisite in the quest for the truth. The artist is requisite for the expression of faith in human form. The professor is requisite for the processing and dissemination of information to humanity. The man of faith is primary, however. Without belief, there is no hope.
In the additional note, there is an absence of modernity in the zone, and this indicates that the more modern we get in our desire to be in control like gods, the further we distance ourselves from our religion.
Implacable and imposing is Stalker even now almost 45 years later. It poses a question, of whether you believe or not. In a vividly imaginative artistic career, Stalker is undoubtedly the peak of Tarkobvky’s genius, and one of the greatest masterpieces of cinema too.
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