Stalker
STALKER (PG)
D: Andrei Tarkovsky
Goskino / Mosfilm (Aleksandra Demidova)
USSR 1979
161 mins
Science Fiction
W: Arkady Strugastsky & Boris Strugatsky [based on their novel “Piknik no Obochine”]
DP: Alexander Knyazhinsky
Ed: Lyudmila Feiginova
Mus: Eduard Artemyev
PD: Andrei Tarkovsky & Aleksandr Boym
Alexander Kaidanovsky (The Stalker), Anatoly Solonitsyn (The Writer), Mykola Hrynko (The Professor), Alisa Freindlich (The Stalker’s Wife)
A Soviet masterpiece, as learned film students around the world would herald it, but it’s all Russian for me.
Based on the philosophical science fiction novel by Arkady Strugastsky & Boris Strugatsky which translates roughly into English as “roadside picnic”, Andrei Tarkovsky’s arthouse Film takes place in an unspecified year in an unspecified country where a zone exists that subverts the laws of physics and travel to the zone has been prohibited by the government and authorities of the unnamed country. Nevertheless, guides (named stalkers) frequently lead people to and from the zone, facing prison as punishment for doing so.
One stalker meets two men, one a writer and the other, a physicist, and guides them into the zone, where a mysterious chamber awaits at the centre with the supposed power to grant wishes.
The film is very much about the journey, rather than the destination, raising themes about existentialism, faith and spiritualism, and that’s fine, but the film really didn’t need to be 161 mins, dragged out by lingering, languid shots which are beautifully photographed, but make the film twice as long as it needed to be.
I do appreciate the style of Tarkovsky’s vision, especially in the sepia-tinted bookends that present a vibe of German expressionist cinema. The middle act of the film concentrates on the journey through the barren wastelands to the zone, and though it has many captivating visuals, the slow-pace of the film really drags, sometimes to the point of tedium.
I don’t mind a ‘thinking man’s sci-fi’, but I also think there’s a very thin line between arthouse cinema and pretentious drivel.
It is an interesting film, and I’m grateful for having watched it, but I’d never subject myself to its 161 minute runtime again.
7/10
