Stalker

Rating:
Summary: Takovsky's "Stalker" is of the highest rank.
Review: Describing Tarkovsky to those who didn't see his films is quite impossible."Stalker" is in many ways his most radical film. An uncompromising meditation on the search for truth, God, happiness. A very demanding film, not for anyone's taste, to say the least. Yet for those who do have the patience and readiness awaits a film of the highest rank, a superior work of art.

Rating:
Summary: A True Thinker¿s Movie. No Arnolds Allowed.
Review: You have to like beautiful, contemplative films to like this movie. Lots of conversation, very little action as a group of men try to find the a way to fulfill their hearts' greatest desire. The problem is that fulfilling our greatest desires may tell us things about ourselves that we don't want to know. At times you feel as though Tarkovsky found this wonderful piece of property and made a movie like kids play in their backyards. "What if?" "Yeh, and what if?" Imagine Foucault's Pendulum on video. If you want guns and explosions, you will hate this movie. If you need a clear plot you will hate this movie. If you have a low threshold of boredom you will be asleep within minutes. But if you are looking for the perfect film to go with a French Pinot, pears and brie baked in bread, the kind of film you can actually talk about long into the evening without ever coming to an agreement, this should be at the top of your list. In the five years since I first saw it, I have yet to see a film that would bump it from my all time top ten list. PS, if you do like this, you will probably also like Solaris, which is slightly more accessible but still sends my son running from the room.

Rating:
Summary: A very slow, but very rewarding film.
Review: The film is set (and filmed) in Russia. It supposes that something unknown has crashed in central Russia, and left the area uninhabitable, and somehow changed. The story follows two men and their guide as they embark into this "zone" seeking a room that is reputed to grant wishes. The film itself moves very slowly, with long drawn out scenes, so impatient film goers would be best to pass it by. For those willing to take the time and admire the beautifully constructed scenes there is much reward. Each shot is immaculately put together, and over the course of the characters journey the viewer is taken through a personal philosophical journey. Much patience is required however, and this is really a film for true arthouse film lovers only.

Rating:
Summary: Surrealistic vision...
Review: "Stalker" is one of the greatest achievements of cinematography in which Tarkovsky proves his directorial genius in every scene of the film. Excellent casting and settings create an 'old masters' like effect making the film both monumental and personal. The movie is deep and it should be viewed several times before it can be fully appreciated. I am sure that film fanatics will add "Stalker" to their 'best movies ever made' lists. If you saw and liked this film, you may be also be attracted to Tarkovsky's "Solaris".

Rating:
Summary: My god this guy is amazing
Review: When I slipped Andrei Tarkovsky's "Stalker" into my VCR I just layed back, openned up a bag of chips, and began contemplating the useless, insignificant quote left by some small time critic on the box: 'this film is the Slavic equvilant to David Lynch's "Eraserhead" (Who like that's a good comparison).'

But then, instead of turning out like some third-rate American make-no-sense paranoia noir, Tarkovsky's achievment is so ingenious, so visual, so relative, and so downright different that I was just blown away.

The film begins in stark black, white and brown colors. The look is so bleak that it looks faded and unfocused. Tarkovsky introduces us to a man desperate for color and beauty in a society that depraves him of such things. The smoke, rain and mud seem to forbid him to leave his home just as much as his own wife does. With this scene alone Tarkovsky has painted a finer picture of communist Russia than every film combined that has ever tried to capture the country's atmosphere and spirit (I'm largely speaking of American movies).

I could go on and on about this film, but I can't. I can't describe what you see, feel, and how it purminates in the mind. It goes so beyond anything that English or American 'Ambitious' epic films present. Films like "Apocalyse Now" and "Lawrence of Arabia" have a surface, but rarely a living indivualized heart underneath.

This is my first Tarkovsky film, and after watching just one, I have contemplated he is just as brilliant and highly cinema-vocabularic as Bergman, Godard, Ozu and Herzog (at his prime). After witnessing Tarkovsky's work, I have a newfound interest in Russian Cinema, and a newfound interest in Russia in general.
Watch this film, or any other Tarkovsky masterpieces, and I garuantee that the bag of chips will be just as untouched come the end as it was at the beginning.

Rating:
Summary: Tarkovsky's "Stalker" DVD released by RUSCICO
Review: Artificial Eye's presentation of Stalker is a bit higgledy piggledy, with the extras scattered across two discs. Perhaps the best way to describe them is "before" and "after".
On the first, we are presented with the first part of the film along with an excerpt from Tarkovsky's diploma offering, The Steamroller And The Violin, Tarkovsky's biography, a Tarkovsy-esque meander through the house he lived in as a child and in-production shots, leaving the post-production interviews and other cast and crew biographies for the second disc.
Aside from the slight quirk of positioning, the presentation is excellent. The animated menus are engaging and easy to navigate, with a good size of print which doesn't leave you squinting around to find the subtitle menu.
The colour and clarity is excellent for a film of its age, with no obvious scratching. The sepia portion is richly coloured and the colour sequences also well realised.
The sound is available in the original mono and in Russian 5.1. Beware, these two representations are distinctly different in places. Perhaps most notable is on the train trip into the Zone, where the original version relies on the rhythmic "music" of the train, travelling over the tracks, to carry the viewer, while the 5.1 version overlays some of Artemyev's ambient music.
Occasionally the music in the 5.1 version seems overly loud and once or twice the sound is "cleaned up", losing some of Tarkovsky's original intention. The 5.1 version, I suspect, equates more closely to Artemyev's vision than that of Tarkovsky.
As regards the extras, they are few but enjoyable. The excerpt from his diploma film demonstrates how good Tarkovsky was, right from the outset of his career, and it is only a shame that there isn't more than the few minutes we get to see. With luck, Artificial Eye will release the full version at some point.
Tarkovsky's House is, in fact, a short film, entitled Memory, which intercuts sequences from Stalker's dream with Tarkovsky's derelict boyhood home. Shot in the style of the director himself, this is a poignant and thought-provoking sequence in its own right. There are just 10 production photographs here, with only one shot in colour.
The most interesting - and most sad - extras are the interviews with director of photography Knyazhinsky and production designer Saifiullin. The former, filmed in a care home, seems overcome with melancholy at the thought that so many of the cast and crew, who worked on the film, have since passed away - he, too, died not long after. His brief interview - at around five minutes in length - offers an insight into the area of Estonia, where most of the Zone shooting occured, explaining that much of the standing water used on the sets was present already and discussing how they used this to their advantage, but it is disturbing to watch somone who is so ill talk about things that he misses.
Saifullin's interview is much meatier, as he talks about the devastating loss of the first half of the film after negatives were spoiled a year into the shoot. He also reminisces about Tarkovsky's eye for detail - "He wanted to know the motivation of every flower" - and discusses his belief that elements of the Stalker character were based on himself. The only downside is that occasionally the subtitles slip into pidgen English, not so much that you lose the thread, though.
The cast and crew biographies are in a sensible typeface, so that you can read them from across the room - other DVD manufacturers please take note. Watch out, while you are reading them for Artemyev's, which contains a not-so-hidden feature of a 21 minute interview. Why Artificial Eye hasn't just packaged this to appear alongside the other interviews is beyond me, as it is a fascinating insight into the way that Tarkovsky viewed the scoring of his films. He was keen to use as little music as possible and had Artemyev reading dissertations before composing in order to achieve the right ambience for certain scenes. Also, squirrelled away in Artemyev's filmography, is a teaser for Solaris.
Overall, the DVD extras have been chosen well and genuinely add to the viewer's understanding of the film, without seeming contrived. It is just a shame that some of them are so hard to find.

P.S. To watch the movie preview video clip you can on russianDVD.com website for free.

Rating:
Summary: Faithless world
Review: First of all, do not watch this film if you have ADD. There are long, drawn out shots of fields, three men walking, and quirky discussions which many will find boring. I didn't. While this film is about many things at once, I found on reflection that (at least to me) "Stalker" is essentially about the ethical/non-ethical nature of notions like hope, redemption. The 'Zone' as it is termed is really a metaphor for what a human has to reach in his/her life to find metaphysical hope. In the end, that hope is judged (by the most likeable character out of the three) to be invalid, even morally wrong.

The meditative shots of fields alternate with shots of decay, destruction, and a "1984ish" state. These men remind one of some of Beckett's characters, behaving in absurd ways. But, perhaps the point is, this is an absurd world. A masterpiece that demands full attentiveness.

Rating:
Summary: Beyond words
Review:
I can only agree with the other reviewers here: This is a fantastic film, and to me, it is the greatest of all time.

The first time I saw it, the experience was like a strange and beautiful dream. The second time (a year or so after the first), it was like coming home. The third time, the psychological and philosophical aspects spoke to me.
Tarkovsky himself claimed that he aimed at making movies for the soul rather than the intellect, but he actually succeeds at doing both. He is not afraid of letting his protagonists engage each other in slow, ponderous conversations, not necessarily deep, but always deep-felt and full of emotion and life.
From another perspective, it plays out like a horrible examination of the barren borderlands between humanity, individuality and conformity.
Visually, the mythological power of the images surpasses anything I`ve ever seen. Apocalyptic.

Rating:
Summary: all of the visionaries are dead?
Review: tarkovsky was an inexplicably rare director who understood that visual stimuli could contain as much substance and belie as much intelligence as the conceptual aspects of a film. it seems that a good deal of critics and filmakers alike believe that visuals alone are weak and in need of story elements to give them meaning. while story and human dynamics are important to maintain the interest of most people they are not essential to the substance of the art form. 'stalker' has long moments of philosophical discourse between its characters but it also settles them into a visual arena that in itself reflects the director's somber, intellectual and ultimately uplifting message. less shots in its entirety than you will find in fifteen minuets of an average contemorary film 'stalker' has the potential to bore the living hell out of a viewer weaned on the full length advertisments sold as movies today. this is an uncompromised intelligent science fiction morality play with only a handful of characters and rich respect for the visual in visual arts. adventurous viewers should seek it out and see for themselves.

Rating:
Summary: The Best Film Done Ever
Review: I think that this is the best film I have ever watched, even I can exaggerate a bit: the only film I have ever watched.

If you like action films, where there is no aim of the film, but just a fight/thief story, as Holywood films, you would not like Stalker; even you maybe not understand even a scene. So, this film is not for holywoodians.

But, if you like psychology, the art, to understand real meaning of something, you love to think, in my opinion this is the best fim done ever.

What is this film about?
The stalker with his two friends (author and the professor) goes to a "Zone", which is surrounded by military units. There is no permission, but they can able to go there. All the film is the dialogue between them in that area, and there is a strong final.

Although the above paragraph is correct, the film is much much more than any paragraph can tell. First of all stalker is you, me, and every person in the world. There are two friends as Author and the Professor, which represents our emotional and realistic feelings/mind in our lives. And and and the Zone is the happiness/the meaning of life/the religion. As it is true in todays world, all of these 3 key items of life is surrounded by the obstacles. Every person knows that he/she should think about meaning of life, but he/she unconsciously delays it. Todays world is about money and power. Relative thinking is the biggest trap that human being fell into. Every person optimizes his/her happiness with respect to a few people nearby, which lacks the rationalism... etc. etc..
In the film, when they enter the zone, the gray colors of the objects, starts to be colored; the real meaining is seen and understood. And in that zone, Author (emotional side: the heart) makes emotional decisions, goes alone without listing to the mind... etc. etc. And the professor just makes the opposite.
In the zone, every action they took, every sentence they said, meant something, could be translated to heart/mind, emotional/rational dimensions of human being.
The film ends with a very very strong closing... The wife of the priest/stalker/human, tells the reality of human psychlogy in a few words,
and the girl of the stalker, plays the best closing of a film. Its like a summary in one sentence plus 2 minutes of action; The girl moves the glasses on the table with her eye (emotional) and drops the one which is the biggest but nothing inside (rational).
Isnt it true? If a person/organization/nation is big, but there is nothing inside, that persons/orgs/nations collapse is inevitible.. either in his/her period, or just after...

The Stalker (or life) is what you watch and what you get...
I recommend to everybody

PS: There was a comment written below, which triggered me to write a review to a film I watched 2-3 years ago. In my opinion, the dog is related with the story of 7 Christians who slept for a lot of years in a cave, and then go out of that cave. (A dog also slept for years with them in that cave) For more information please refer to Bible or (more precise in:) Quran.