Stalker (1979)
Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky

Film Review

The last film that Andrei Tarkovsky made in the Soviet Union is almost certainly his greatest, an enchantingly poetic contemplation on the meaning of life that deserves to be on everyone's top ten list of the greatest films ever made.  Like his heroes, Bresson, Bergman and Dreyer, Tarkovsky brings to cinema an aesthetic of breathtaking originality that allows him to create a purely transcendental experience, one that is imbued with profound observations on the nature of man and his relationship with art.  Stalker is a uniquely captivating film, not only mesmerisingly beautiful in its composition but also endlessly fascinating in its meticulous probing of the human psyche.  It is a film that, once seen, is never forgotten - a work of eerie stylistic brilliance with a totally indefinable charm.

Any attempt to summarise Stalker's pared-back narrative is doomed to end up making it sound like an insane cross-between Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness and The Wizard of Oz (1939).  The fact that the film employs the same sepia-to-colour switch of the famous MGM musical can only reinforce this impression (mercifully there are no Munchkins - well, not visible ones).  If you had to categorise the film it would probably fall within the 'quest' genre.  Looking suspiciously like characters in a Russian version of the British sitcom Last of the Summer Wine, three creepy middle-aged men set off on an expedition across open country, each looking for something to bring meaning to his empty existence.  These represent three archetypes of Soviet intelligentsia - the tormented writer, the dedicated scientist and the fanatical faith zealot. 

The characters are not even given names; they are referred to by their function: Writer, Professor and Stalker (meaning guide).  As in The Wizard of Oz, this happy bunch of Dostoyevskian losers are lured to a place that offers them redemption but what in fact redeems them is not the goal but the journey.  The Room that lies at the heart of the Zone, a place which promises to fulfil the deepest wish of anyone who enters it, turns out to be a pure MacGuffin.  Or does it?  The importance of the Room is not that it exists or has the powers attributed to it, but that the protagonists believe it exists.  If we equate the Room with hope then one interpretation of Stalker becomes readily apparent.  It is a film that invites us to ponder whether human existence is bearable, indeed possible, without hope.  For the word 'hope' you could equally substitute the word 'faith'.  Tarkovsky's liberal use of Christian iconography (including rows of telegraph poles shot as crucifixes) suggests that a rational mind's conflict with religious belief is what lies at the heart of the film.

Stalker is the film that killed Andrei Tarkovsky.  Well, that's one theory.  The cancer that claimed Tarkovsky's life, seven years after he made the film, is believed to have been caused by exposure to toxic chemicals at the various East European locations used to depict the rooms within the Zone.  In several locations, Tarkovsky and his crew came into contact with water that was polluted by poisonous chemicals, and as a result several of them subsequently fell ill and died.  This tragic outcome has added to Stalker's reputation as a jinxed production.

The first major setback encountered by Tarkovsky very nearly scuppered the film before it even reached the editing stage.  Having spent almost a year shooting the location exteriors Tarkovsky found, on developing the footage, that it was totally unusable.  The director was under pressure from the film's backers to abandon the film and his relationship with his cinematographer Georgy Rerberg ended in acrimony.  Only by offering to make Stalker as a two-part film was Tarkovsky able to raise the money to complete it.  The hiatus was to be providential, as it gave its author time to put more work in on the script, to give more depth to the main characters and make the Stalker a more central figure.  Through an almost soul-destroying quirk of fate, Tarkovsky was compelled to distil his art and ended up delivering what is not only his best film but also one of the all-time masterpieces of cinema.

And there is no doubt that Stalker is a masterpiece, a piece of film poetry that is unlike anything else the seventh art has given us.  It is hard to account for the hypnotic effect that the film has over its spectator throughout its ample two-and-half hours of runtime.  Most of the film consists of three pathetic individuals ruminating on the emptiness of their lives and arguing amongst themselves.  The dangers that they talk about never arise and we are tempted to dismiss all three as delusional cranks.  Tarkovsky's habitual use of the long take, with some takes lasting as long as four minutes, slows the pace of the film down to an imperceptible crawl.  Within a take, the camera scarcely moves and the editing is so subtle that you hardly notice the cuts.  Indeed the only transition that is apparent is the sudden switch from sepia to colour in the first part of the film, a transition that is so abrupt and unexpected that it almost causes you to leap out of your seat. 

Expressed in these terms, Stalker would seem to be an endurance test for even the most hardy of arthouse film enthusiasts, and yet it is a film that is so inexpressibly rewarding once you have surrendered yourself to it, its undercurrent of dark humour adding to its appeal and mystique.  Right from its eerie opening you cannot help being drawn into its strange, subtly surreal landscape, to become a willing prisoner in Tarkovsky's opaquely allegorical fantasy.  We are as keen to get into the Zone as the three protagonists, and their journey of enlightenment and self-discovery becomes ours.  When we leave the Zone we are not as we were.  The world has changed.  Like Dorothy after her colourful escapade in Oz, things will never be the same again.  The Stalker will be with us always, haunting our consciousness forever.  Are you brave enough to enter the Zone...?

Film Synopsis

In a bar in a grimly forlorn industrial landscape three unkempt middle-aged men meet.  One is a disillusioned writer, another is an introverted scientist.  The third, referred to as the Stalker, is to be their guide on a dangerous, life-changing expedition.  Outside the city, in open countryside, there is a place that has come to be known as the Zone.  Little is known about the Zone and how it came into being.  It is believed to have been created twenty years ago, after a meteorite landed in the area, imbuing it with strange properties.  At the heart of the Zone is the Room, which can bring about the utmost desires of anyone who enters it.  No one who tries to traverse the Zone without a guide ever returns.  Not only is the Zone guarded on the outside by trigger-happy guards, inside it contains numerous traps to destroy the unwary.  The Stalker warns his two latest clients that unless they follow his instructions to the letter they will be lost.   The Zone is the deadliest place on Earth and not all who enter the Room get what they expect...