Stalker

Rating:
Summary: Warning
Review: This is NOT the widescreen version of the film. Only the widescreen version does justice to the landscape Tarkovsky creates for the viewer.

Rating:
Summary: Thought-provoking movie about humankind
Review: I first saw "Stalker" nearly 20 years ago with a bunch of friends. The video was a little grainy and no one in the room had the slightest idea what the movie was about, except that it was a Russian film. Within the first 20 mins of the film, most of my friends had drifted to start a poker game, showing little or no interest on what was happening on screen, except for two of us, who were mesmerized with the film, admiring not only the visuals, which were stark and devoid of cinematic effects, but also the ideas that were being exchanged by the film's three central characters - the "Stalker", the Writer and the Professor. Just based on this one incident, this is a movie that demands a certain level of introspection as well as acute concentration and involvement, especially to understand where Tarkovsky is leading the viewer and his deep philosophical expositions through his characters on the ultimate fate of "humankind". There is a certain statement in the film on the ultimate use of technology, its limitations and its inability to ultimately create something of lasting value. As one of its characters [ "Writer"] explains, technology has served mankind as a kind of "crutch" or artifical prop, but with no lasting value, from an artistic or creative point of view. Also, in the "Zone", a mysterious place that seems innocuous visually and presents life amidst decay and detritus [human detritus, left behind by man, ranging from burnt out tanks in green fields to a syringe ], nothing is certain, nothing is "straight" and there's no logic to be found here. Only the "Stalker" knows his way around the Zone and not by any knowledge of the terrain or his prior forays into the Zone but an immediate, real time assessment of his own state of mind, his internal communication with the mysterious forces acting in the Zone. The "ultimate" room is a mental construct of sorts and is actually a dreadful place ultimately for most people, although it supposedly grants people their innermost wishes. In a simplistic way, this is the "Holy Grail" for most people, a place where they can get their most secret desires and wishes granted. However, the interesting question being posed here is - does anyone really know or is anyone really interested in having their innermost desires or wishes granted. There is a certain dark truth here that most individuals would actually be better off if such a place did not exist and their innermost desires may actually not be what they are really wishing for. Human beings are complex, selfish and ultimately, self-serving. It is impossible for Tarkovsky to comprehend that any one person can be totally unselfish in his desires. That is his view and I would tend to agree. People are ultimately going to act in their own interests, or in the interests of their family or other things that they are concerned with. No one is going to act for humankind, an altruistic view that has no basis in reality. Witness the Stalker's story in this regard regarding a character called "Porcupine", another stalker who killed his brother. He enters the Zone hoping to restore a life and ease his anguish and guilt by entering the mysterious room and asking for his wish to be granted. And what was this wish, you may well ask ? Why , to restore his brother to life and good health and assuage his feelings, bring him peace. Or, to just wipe away the guilt. However, the Zone recognized the real scoundrel that he really was and granted him his innermost, secret desire - to be really wealthy. Fabulously wealthy as soon as he returned from the Zone, he was tortured by guilt and committed suicide within the week. Moral of the story - do you really, really, want to know your innermost desires ? This assumes that in the first place, is anyone really capable of articulating his/her innermost desires ? People are shallow individuals, focused on their own interests and live on the surface. I'm not too sure that anyone can "know" what their innermost desires are ? Second, what if you do manage to discover what your desires really are - if they are really deep, dark and disgusting, can you really live with yourself once you become aware of them ? Lastly, who would ever want to have their desires fulfilled, if they were not in the right place to start with ?

All in all, a deep philosophical movie that draws you into the "Zone" and never lets you go.

Rating:
Summary: One of the BEST russian movies ... ever !
Review: ...The gray world of reality ... But there is one place there: a ZONE ! What is there ? Nobody really knowes . Government did send some troops to find out ... they never returned ... just vanished . But there is a room there . The room of your dreams - a place , where your wish will come thrue ... not the wish , which you ask ... the wish , wich you have in your heart . But to get to this room , you need a gide ... you need " STALKER ".
When we get to the ZONE , gray world of reality changes - we can se the colors , we can hear the silense . Then we realise- STALKER never went to this room ?! Why ? He just whant to escape to different world ... the dream world .
Too bad , when Andrey Tarkovski did ... he realised : escape means surrunder ... but it was too late .
Exellent cinematography !!! It is not annoying you , it is helping you ...

Rating:
Summary: Art that reflects on real life
Review: All the agony and misery that is life is expressed with a beauty and clarity that one cannot find in Star Wars Episode II. Here all you see is real, the water, the grass. In these simple things lie the meaning of the human condition. The charcters wander in a Zone that is a metaphore of their ravaged souls. Silence, decay, rain. Yet, in this film there is hope, never ending and one that will always endure. Tarkovsky shows us the Russian soul in a way that only his Andire Rublyov equals

Rating:
Summary: I "second that emotion" ...
Review: I agree with everything the guy from the Icefall said, and then some. Strange, cryptic films always appeal to me. Pure poetry.

Rating:
Summary: Sorry Andrei, wherever you are, this is horrible!
Review: Much as I love Tarkovsky, and I deeply love three of his movies, I really hate this one. It is boring and silly. In fact it could well lay claim to be the most boring film ever made. The script is nothing much and the usual device of poems seems forced this time. First cringe is the transition from sepia to colour upon entering the zone thus conjuring unfavourable comparisans to 'The Wizard Of Oz'. Unfortunately, the Stalker's wife does not enliven the proceedings with her version of 'Over The Rainbow', deciding instead to roll around the floor of her hovel with belly ache. Originally, the producers of 'Oz' left out that song because they didn't want to delay Dorothy's journey. In 'Stalker' they don't much care if the protagonists are held up or if they don't move at all, so a song might have been nice. Actually, some Can-Can dancers would have been especially welcome.
Once in the zone, our three cheerful chums do pretty much what we all did around derelict building sites and forests as a kid, which is to bicker, roll around on the floor and chuck metal objects at each other. Thanks for the nostalgia trip. Well, maybe not. Someone chucks something into a steel well. Plink. Remember that too? They find a skeleton and this reminds me of an amusing production anecdote in which a newly arrived crew member on the set either sat on, or placed something on the skeleton, squashing it. The budget didn't extend to making a new skeleton so the poor crew member was dispatched to the railway station, presumably for a very drawn out and excrutiatingly boring wait for a rural train. Tarkovsky later relented however, true humanitarian that he was. Actually, it's not that amusing an anecdote, I'm just worried this review is getting boring. Which it is. So to make things even more boring we only get to see half a skeleton because of the damage. Pity, they could have tied some string to the original and had it do Stanislavski's greatest hits, or failing that, the Can-Can.
Tarkovsky railed against the lack of sacrifice people were willing to make in today's materialist culture but the long walk through the catacombs of the building betrays an almost priggish sadism, especially as the writer doing the walking then sits down for ten minutes and whinges about his publishers. Then in one of many naff moments, the writer wears a crown of thorns presumably because he doesn't want to be beaten by the Stalker in a 'Baldest on Building Site' competition. Sadly this man has the unfortunate distinction of being the least disappearing visitor to the zone, thus, to our ultimate existential horror, returning to the outside world to bore some more.
The one saving grace is the intriguing and beautifully shot ending which bumps up some much needed stars for the film.
Incredibly, 'Stalker' was a remake, the original version allegedly spoiled by obstructive lab technicians. Or could it be that God was trying to tell you something, Andrei? After all, if he'd put us on the earth to be bored out of our minds, would he have given us Formula One racing driving? Actually, I can't stand that either, bad example.
On a sadder note, it was speculated that this film caused Tarkovsky and some of the crew to suffer an early demise from cancer because of the Communist block's disastrous environmental policies concerning industrial waste of which 'The Zone' was an alleged dumping ground.

Rating:
Summary: What Andrey Tarkovsky had to say about his own film
Review: Stalker is an extraordinary film, but what is it all about? A writer and a scientist meet the stalker in a shabby, decaying bar. Afterwards they board a makeshift rail trolley and travel deep into the Zone to the strange room that grants any wisher their innermost wish. And who can forget the flowing pool with it's coins and artwork and detritus of civilization? Later, there's the ending with the spectral black canine prowling about silently and the stalker's child is moving objects across a table by telekinesis.
The great director himself offers something of an explanation which can be found in "Sculpting In Time", a collection of his film writings (which are often rigid and lapse into Soviet locutions -- (but hey, those were the times he was living in, when the Kremlin mindf**cked everybody, and a director was lucky if he or she even had the opportunity to open a film cannister, much less make a film).

Tarkovsky writes: "What, then, is the main theme that had to sound through Stalker? In the most general terms, it is the theme of human dignity; of what that dignity is; and of how a man suffers if he has no self-respect...Let me remind the reader that when the characters in the film set out on their journey into the Zone, their destination is a certain room in which, we are told, everybody's most secret wish will be granted. And while the Writer and the Scientist, led by Stalker, are making their hazardous way over the strange expanse of the Zone, their guide tells them at one point either a true story or a legend, about another Stalker, nicknamed Diko-obraz. He had gone to the secret place in order to ask for his brother, who had been killed through his fault, to be brought back to life. When Diko-obraz returned home, however, he discovered that he had becom fabulously wealthy. The Zone had granted what was in reality his most heartfelt desire, and not the wish that he had wanted to imagine was most precious to him. And Diko-obraz had hanged himself."

In another part of the book, "Sculpting in Time", Tarkovsky offers a portrayal and purpose of the Stalker. Tarkovsky writes:

"Looking back now at the films I have made so far, it strikes me that I have always wanted to tell of people possessed of inner freedom despite being surrounded by others who are inwardly dependent and unfree; whose apparent weakness is born of moral conviction and a moral standpoint and in fact is a sign of strength....The Stalker seems to be weak, but essentially it is he who is imvincible because of his faith and his will to serve others. Ultimately artists work at their profession not for the sake of telling someone about something, but an assertion of their will to serve people. I am staggered by artists who assume that they freely create themselves, that it is actually possible to do so; for it is the lot of the artist to accept that he is created by his time and the people amongst whom he lives."

Rating:
Summary: Amazing.
Review: STALKER is one of the best sf films ever. Extremely intelligent in every way I could mention, the movie does not fail to hold the viewer's interest at every step. A loose adaptation of the novel ROADSIDE PICNIC by the brothers Boris & Arkady Strugatsky, this film is every bit as rewarding an experience to watch as that novel is to read. The film concerns the adventure of a "stalker", a guide who leads a team of illegal curiosity seekers through "the Zone", an area tainted physically and, perhaps, spiritually by the brief presence of extra-terrestrials who stopped there in their journey. Impressively, THE STALKER achieves its power completely through dialog and direction, without benefit of any kind of visual special effects (beyond those of the director and camerman). I highly reccommend THE STALKER to anyone searching for an intelligently composed film.

Rating:
Summary: When, for the love of heaven, will this be put on DVD
Review: That says it all. Listen up, video companies. People want to buy things they NEED to watch over and over and over. This qualifies.

Rating:
Summary: Perhaps I Should Give It Another Chance
Review: Well its not really fair for me to rate a film that I didn't finish watching. A friend took me to see this film at the theater. We are both art film fanatics so we did arrive with open minds ready to be taken on a unique journey. I am not one those dippy movie goers that only watch action films and refuse to watch anything black and white or with subtitles or movies that are talky or slow. This movie, however, brought me to my threshold of slow tolerance. I knew something significant was taking place among the cast but I felt like I wasn't a part of it. Someone in the row in front of us kept turning around to see if his girlfriend was still watching or if she had fallen asleep. He turned around so often to check on her that we were becoming annoyed. I know that feeling. It is a feeling of loving something so much and hoping the other person gets it. I, unfortunately, didn't get it. The scene where they are traveling in "the zone" through an underground tunnel had me imagining what might happen if they had found a trap door on top, opened it up, crawled out, and suddenly find themselves right smack in the middle of Euro Disney. I kept waiting for something to happen. It was like watching a home movie where the characters were making it up as they went along. I fancy myself an intellectual film goer but I think I met my match with Stalker. Based on the other reviews I suppose I should watch it again from beginning to end.