Stalker

Tarkovsky's direction for this film is nearly flawless.

The film mainly focuses on three characters and their basic goodness of each other. The photographic colors are brilliantly choreographed to the mood of character and viewer. The visionary landscapes are mesmerizing beautiful.

The survival techniques the characters in the film achieve is unlike anything I've seen in film. Much like Kubrick in terms of directive style and character study, Tarkovsky puts the viewer in a kaleidoscopic landscape of mood and emotion. No clichés here though. I have not read the story which the movie is based upon, but from what I understand the characters in the film all develop a healing understanding of each other.

That is when you know [as a viewer] that you will watch something unique and

exceptional. If you are into complex, psychological science fiction in the same vain of say {The Andromeda Strain, Solaris, 2001:a space odyssey} than you shall enjoy "Stalker".

i want to say somethings about the most poetic,philosophical and intuitive director, tarkovsky and his movies ,especially Stalker.

first of all, we must all know that, tarkovsky is not for all. his poetic understanding of life and human and putting this understanding to his movies is unique in the world for my opinion. one of the most poetic and philosophical movies of him, Stalker is that kind of movie. it is like a poem written with objects. we must feel before we try to understand.

opening sequence of film contains some kind of expressionist objects with related the moral and inner conditions of the people living in the town . the "dirty" black and white take gives the viewers ,the mood of people having nothing to live, nothing to believe and nothing to give others.and the aggressive green take in the "zone" gives another vision of the life. the camera moves very slow to make us to go into to film and feel the film. tarkovsky's usage of objects and colours is very different and that is why i think he was a cinema poet. on the other hand, in addition to this "poem written with objects", the film also has very deep philosophical content. what is life,what is human, what is goodness, what is selfishness, what is devotion, what are the bases of our civilizations etc. and people are made to think all these things, not mostly with dialogs but with objects and colours and complete vision.

for example, the three objects shown while the camera goes into the water ,but actually to the heart of human being and we see one cringe, one gun and one religious icon. and these are the metaphors of the human civilizations for my opinion. and all the journey into to the "zone" and finally "room" , actually done into the human being. into our selfishness,into our subconsciousness, our badness,our goodness, our weak and strong parts. actually i can feel that , the things searched in this movie are our lost innocence . the stalker is the only people who believes something and needs to believe .and actually the journey itself is a fake. to go to the truth,faith,justice, goodness are being related with innocence in that movie. the microcosms shown poetically in the water is another metaphor shows human being's selfish behaviour. because human, destroys the things,destroys the innocence, destroys the world living around them.our today's civilization broke our strong cooperation with nature and changed this relationship to a nature disaster. the movie gives the message of the need of mercy to all the living and even non-living things in our nature. because human being's salvation is only related with that.

and the need of hope, need of believe is human being's basic needs. and our modern world destroyed all the hopes and believes. the movie contains metaphors making us to feel and think about those needs.and the most critical thing is felt in the film that self-denial is the basic need in our world.and unfortunately this value is lost and needed to be re-gain.

i can tell about all the metaphors in the movie but no need. because every person understand those things different like kafka's novels. and we just need to watch the movie with no prejudice but with open heart.

i recommend this film to all the cinema-lovers. i recommend also not to try to understand this film. only leave yourself to this great poem and it will give you all you need.

I value Tarkovsky so much that I have saved this film. Watching an important film for the first time is such a profound experience that one should pace oneself. Conceptual gluttony may not be a sin, but its unwise if you take film seriously. It provides yet stronger reasons to hang around.

I've saved this film for 30 years to watch for a special birthday, and opened it carefully. It did not disappoint. I recommend it to you as something worth saving. I think it is something best encountered after enough life to register — it surely does not surf energetic hope as most films do.

Some background, if you do not know Tarkovsky. I rate him as among the three filmmakers now dead who have influenced me. Recommendations at this level can only come from personal reports of the great voyage into the unknown and how the filmmaker has led one through dangerous, oracular terrain. It is what Tarkovsky does for me, as the most cinematic of the greats. And it is how this story is framed.

There are three men here: a scientist, a writer and the guide. The journey is abstract, as presented visually through the most hypnotizing environments you will ever touch. These are textured spaces, always strictly architectural and derived (by wear, use and penetration of the wild) from ordinary built structures.

The journey is presented in a way that can be seen as a general Godot-inspired existential drift. On reading observations from others, even serious thinkers, this seems to be how most people experience this. I would like you to consider a deeper experience.

Elsewhere, I heavily criticize movies that depict mathematical or artistic breakthroughs and they might as well be depicting a sporting success. "Beautiful Mind," "Good Will," and "Pi" come to mind. The problem is that actual search, actual conceptual risk — which is the idea in these movies — is fully cinematic, strongly shaped by internal narrative and highly visual in the sense of escaping the images of worn dreams. These movies miss the boat, probably because no one involved has been there.

Tarkovsky has, at least as a guide. He not only understands the angst of living in abstract webs of fluid risk, but knows the internal collaborative tension between the writer and the scientist, and between each and the outside world of reified happenstance, and also among all those and the edge of family and love. All of these we can literally see. It is an absolutely miraculous experience. Save it for when it can matter.

This is quite different than other Tarkovsky works I think. It is more removed from experience of life, more deliberately unrooted in the flesh. It transforms sex into rougher refinement of urge. It will be less accessible than, say, the meditations on the body and place of in "Nostalgia" and "Mirror," which themselves are apart from the even more open notion of self and nation (as religion) in "Andrei Rublov."

For this reason, I will advise working up to this because the biggest disaster would be for you to see this for the first time and not place yourself in it. Break yourself first.

My rule for rating a film 4 out of three is that no more than two per year and two from each filmmaker. Andrei has two others rated 4, which I think are essential. This is more powerful and personal than those, but consequently more elusive.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

Some have claimed that "Stalker" is not a science fiction film. I'd say it's more of a science fiction film than most of what Hollywood passes off as part of the genre, most of which are simply action films with a sci-fi bent. Stalker is science fiction in the vein of the genres greatest writers like Phillip K. Dick and Stanislaw Lem. It's pure science fiction, based on science, metaphysics and speculation, not some action fantasy or space opera that fits into the genre on the technicality that it takes place "in the future" or "a long, long time ago". The film is slow...very slow but it has to be to put you into the mindset of the film. After the opening 30 minutes the pacing actually draws you into the film in a more personal way more than any Cyborg-post-apocalyptic-hell crap Hollywood could spew out. This film is truly sci-fi, and truly great sci-fi.

There have been some comments about this film's length. I am initially reminded of the scene in "Amedeus" where Mozart is told that his composition has "Too many notes" to this he replies "There are just enough..." This film offers great insight into the inner workings of not just the creative mind but the social will of mankind. If you are a viewer who enjoys film please disregard the whining of those who don't enjoy investigating thoroughly the possibility of a well thought out and concise perspective and please watch this masterpiece of modern film. The director leads the viewer through some profound aspects of humanity with such brilliance and in my opinion swiftness that to pass it by would be a shame.