Stalker

Rating:
Summary: This is our modern angst epitomized
Review: My favorite movie of all times, this movies well deserves the description "stark," or "meloncholy." If you love film, you must own this movie. You must watch it again and again.

Heart wrenchingly beautiful, hopeless and hopeful. Ambiguous and lyrical.

My only regret is that I don't read Russian and cannot read the novel on which this is based. "Better than the movie," say my Russian friends.

Rating:
Summary: Very good movie, but not for everyone
Review: After reading the reviews from other people I felt that I must put a few words about this movie. First, you have to know that this movie is based on the novel by THE best russian fictoin writers - Strugatsky brothers. So the movie is only an attempt to interpret the story. I read the novel and I think Andrei Tarkovsky did an excellent job. No one else could direct the movie like that. To understand the movie you probably have to have an above average IQ. So, usually people who are not capable to understand it would say it was boring or stupid. Let's just say that this movie is not for people like those ones. You must also remember that the english translatoin is not perfect. It's like reading translated poetry - one never get THE real thing from trnaslation. I recommend watching the movie: SOLARIS first. If you like that one you might like STALKER. And, if you don't understand something, don't blame the movie; maybe it's just you.

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Summary: <Yawn> <StrEEETTcch> ... Zzzzz.
Review: The best thing I can say about this long-winded and pretentious brick of bleak filmmaking is that it's nice to fall asleep to. And that's not just a cynical remark -- it really is. The same way that 'The Joy of Painting' is pleasant to fall asleep to; or the Japanese film 'Gate of Hell.' But those are far preferable to Tarkovsky's 'Stalker' when all is said and done.

A "visual poem"? Perhaps. But what's it worth? Go outside, look around: there are visual poems everywhere. The only thing differentiating Tarkovsky's film from, say, me standing around looking at meadows and run-down buildings, is that Tarkovsky's film comes with a pretentious air of self-importance, and three relatively annoying characters who occasionally wax oblique and try to sound deep.

It's not that I don't "get it" -- (although it is a bit of a struggle due to the general atmosphere of weird artsy-fartsiness.) It's supposed to be metaphorical. It's supposed to be contemplative and slow-moving. It isn't supposed to be a science fiction thriller (which the back of the box unfortunately makes it sound like.) And it's not that I'm utterly against slow-moving, metaphorical films. I liked Kurosawa's 'Dreams,' preachy as it was. And Kobayashi's 'Kwaidan.' And to a lesser extent the aforementioned 'Gate of Hell.' Though the last two are admittedly not really "metaphorical" in the sense that 'Stalker' is, all of them are very slow-moving, aesthetically spacious foreign movies that have a definite feel of "visual poetry" to them.

The problem is that Tarkovsky is just flat-out boring and depressing. I can handle a degree of pretention if I feel there's some real flare and aesthetic power to the work in question. But Tarkovsky doesn't make the cut. What he gives us with 'Stalker' is a four-hour exercise in cinematographic (word?) masturbation, peppered with vague dialogue and a silly, throw-away outline of an actual story.

Those who find 'Stalker' engaging or inspirationl must, in my opinion, REALLY be digging hard, doing Tarkovsky's work for him. I don't mind a film which requires some degree of imagination on the viewer's part, but there's nothing about Tarkovsky's work that makes me want to spend time with it in that way.

Dull, pretentious, and silly. One or two vaguely thought-provoking lines can't save a four-hour film. The fact that someone compared this to the Brothers Karamazov makes me slightly ill.

Still a nice video to pop in when you need to get some shut-eyed, though.

Rating:
Summary: Worst movie ever!
Review: This is definitely the worst movie I have seen, it was so bad that I recommended it to my friend and I saw it again with him and we laughed and mouned as we tried to endure this 2-and-a-half-hour horror! Do NOT try to watch this film! And don't even think about buying it... Unless you are an "artist freak" who think you're cool by pretending to like this crap. I say this, and I usually don't feel this way, I am a movie-fan myself. And I usually love slow movies, 2001 is one of my favourites, but this one is totally uninteresting! You couldn't care less about the characters OR the story (which could in fact have been interesting, but no no, let's make it boring as hell instead).

Rating:
Summary: Brothers Karamazov visit Chernobyl
Review: Andrei Tarkovsky's Stalker is another one of those movies with a bipolar disorder; You either love it or hate it. Having said this, I must admit that I loved the movie. So be forewarned. This is another review by an enthusiast. Stalker improves upon recollection and has a fascination that one cannot readily explain.

The stalker leads others into a mysterious and forbidden zone that is heavily protected by a police state. Was the zone caused by a meteorite? We do not know. We do know that many have entered the zone never to return. And we also know that in the twenty some years since the meteorite fell, a legend has grown up that there exists within the zone a room where one's innermost wish may be granted. The calling of the stalker, who has faith in the legend, is to lead others past the police guards and through the labyrinthine zone to the room.

The action begins when a writer and a physicist meet together with the stalker in a dreary bar. Everything is wet and slippery here, as it is through most of the movie. Curiously, the images change from sepia to color as we enter the zone. As the stalker explains the mysteries to us we know that we are not in Kansas anymore. In the decidely un-cartesian zone one never traverses the shortest distance between two points. An indirect approach is always best. Only the stalker can divine the way, which is confused beyond words.

It is an understatement to say that the scenes are disquieting. The zone is strewn with syringes, silt, and debris of all kinds. Everything seems to be wet, including the visitors. But they don't mind. They are engaged in philosophical-religious speculation! For shame to think of personal comfort when larger issues are at stake.

It is remarkable that in 1980 Tarkovsky created a film about a dangerous zone strewn with debris, where children of frequent visitors have deformed children. I cannot escape the conclusion that this film artistically predicted Chernobyl.

In many ways the zone is like life (where sometimes progress is simple and other times it is confused beyond words). In other ways it is like death. But it is not all gloom and doom. The Stalker is, in his original way, beatific. Through the prayerful monologue of the stalker Tarkovsky accomplishes the transcendent moments characteristic of all of his films. The stalker's faith is reminiscent of the cargo cults of the South Pacific. That the object of his faith is pathetic makes it no less sincere.

The unnamed "writer" and "professor" are profoundly different individuals whose only common experience seems to be suffering. But the quality of their suffering is different. Our "writer" has specialized in a kind of suffering that contaminates all who come within the orbit of his wit. The professor has suffered alone, in intellectual isolation. The stalker has suffered as well, but he has sacrificed his suffering and has attained an acceptance of life through faith. It is a fragile acceptance though, one that can be shaken by intellectuals convinced that they have been "born for something".

Stalker convinces us that a man be so misguided as to worship the most pathetic of objects. If such a man has sacrificed his suffering he is greater than the most exalted intellectual.

I am impressed that you have read this review from beginning to end. You must really be a fine person!

Rating:
Summary: Night and Day
Review: Twenty years ago, a meteorite fell to Earth, and decimated a provincial Russian town. Villagers travelled through this curious area, now known as The Zone, and disappeared. Stories purport that there is an inner chamber within the Zone, The Room, that grants one's deepest wish. Fearing the consequences from such an inscrutible resource, the army immediately secured the area with barbed wire and armed patrol. But the desperate and the suffering continue to make the treacherous journey, led by a disciplined, experienced stalker who can stealthily navigate through the constantly changing traps and pitfalls of the Zone. A successful Writer (Anatoli Solonitsyn), perhaps searching for inspiration or adventure, and a Scientist (Nikolai Grinko) searching for Truth, enlist the Stalker (Aleksandr Kaidanovsky) to guide them through The Zone. The Stalker has been trained by a renowned stalker named Porcupine, who, after an excursion with his brother into The Zone, returned alone and infinitely wealthy, only to commit suicide a week later. Soon, it is evident that reaching The Zone is not their greatest impediment, but the uncertainty over their deepest wish. As the men approach the threshold to The Room, their fear and trepidation for the materialization of their answered prayers leads to profound revelation and self-discovery.

"Stalker" is a visually serene, highly metaphoric, and deeply haunting treatise on the essence of the soul. Episodically, Andrei Tarkovsky uses chromatic shifts to delineate between the outside world and The Zone. Thematically, as in "Solaris", the transition serves as an oneiric device to separate physical reality from the subconscious. The created barriers and imposed laws of the outside world parallel the Stalker's incoherent tracking methods for reaching The Room. Note that despite the Stalker's warning not to use the same path twice, the Scientist returns to retrieve his knapsack unharmed, casting doubt on the Stalker's navigational rules. Symbolically, it is as if the subconscious is in denial of its sincerest wish, creating its own boundaries and impediments to prevent its realization. After a circuitous route, the men arrive at the antechamber to The Room, hesitant to proceed, unable to define their innermost wish: their spiritual longing. The floor is strewn with coins, hypodermic needles, weapons, and religious icons: a reflection of the mind's search for escape from its misery. In the end, The Zone's real or imagined powers proves to be inconsequential to the weary, ambivalent seekers. It was all in the journey...

Rating:
Summary: the best film ever made
Review: saw stalker a few nights back and i'm still in a daze. look forward to seeing it again... and again... and again. if you're a first-timer, i suggest you resist the temptation to analyse/interpret, and just let the movie take over. Oh, p.s. The ones who gave the movie bad reviews are all American. Interesting.

Rating:
Summary: A dream, a poem, the human soul.
Review: STALKER is the Odyssey of the human soul. Tarkovsky unveils the human soul and films it naked in this surrealistic poem. Agony is the word that describes this Odyssey, the agony of the soul to salvation through a journey that will alter the three heros forever. Dont try to interpret this film, dreams cannot be interpreted. They just leave a feeling to your tongue after you wake up that you forget moments after. STALKER reaches the point of the ontological question: Who are we, were do we come from and what is our destination. It does not give answers, that is impossible, but it describes this unfair struggle.

The film is not divided in scenes or acts or anything else. It is a collective flow of the human spirit. It is one act that flows in slow motion because Tarkovsky's notion of time is completely different than the conventonal one. The time and space inside the ZONE are badly distorted by the presence of the subconscious of the three heros, in the same way that space and time are distorted in the universe by the presence of mass. Tarkovsky manages to visualize this strange coupling between the human soul and nature through his brilliant invention of the invinsble "traps" inside the ZONE.

The images that are depicted on the film are greater than life. Tarkovsky's achievement is unique. It is like the child that pretends that his bed is a spaceship and travels across the universe without ever leaving its room. This is the same "ROOM" inside the ZONE. The three heroes seem to travel through wrecked buildings and flooded sewers but in reality they travel through the entire spectrum of their existence. Dont believe what you see on this film, try to dig deeper.

I firmly believe that STALKER is one of the utmost achievements of the human art. It is a priceless gem in the arsenal of the human kind in its search for the Truth.

Rating:
Summary: The matchless top of the movie art
Review: Mysterious, fantastic, enigmatic...It's about our life, guys! Isn't it our life, where are no straight ways? Isn't it our life, full of unexpected deadly traps? Isn't it our life, where is no way back? And isn't it a question that haunts each of us - what my very self really wants and what my very self really is? And isn't it so very true, that "those things come true here, that correspond to your very essence, that you yourself are ignorant of"? I can continue the list of what Tarkovski's artistic genious moved from life to this fantasy, and the list can be endless, because the movie is actually "about it all" - you just have to be able to see. And finally the movie is so mysterious and enigmatic...as life itself.

Rating:
Summary: THE BEST FILM EVER CREATED
Review: This is a film about faith, divine grace and the fruitless vanity stemming from our soul's original sin. To quote from one of the characters in the film," My mind preaches vegetarianism, but my heart longs for a juicy piece of steak." And this is the premise of the three characters journey into the Zone - to seek out their steak: to find the Room in the Zone that will grant them their wishes; and this coming from the very same people whose professions demands higher standards of moral living from them, careers that require them to preach vegetarianism. Of course they have failed in their lives professions, and the characters know this but their inner chaos stem from the private pains in their lives, their failure to live up to their calling and their denial/certainty about their indivisual failures and states of their tarnished souls. Although Stalker is someone who leads others into the the Zone as a guide, his purpose apparently being to help others obtain their wish and thus bring about happiness for others, yet Tarkovsky hints that Stalker's outward explaination is dubious as he will not hesitate to make scapegoats and guinea pigs of his clients in the face of uncertainty and danger. As for Writer, he is, yes, a writer who is going into the Zone to look and beg for inspiration and faith in life as a whole; until Writer can obtain this wish, his cynicism and lack of faith can be summed up in one of his quotes:" A writer can only write about his readers." Professor is a scientist whose reason for seeking out the Room is unspecified until at the very end of the film but I will not divulge his reason.He is a researcher who has to bear his boss's fury and defintely hates his job at the lab. Many great cinematic moments are to be found in the film, in fact the film is one great cinematic moment non-stop, even after it ends, and this can be attributed to Tarkovsky's brilliant handling of every aspect of the film; one can even go so far as to say that with this film tarkovsky proved that he is easily the Einstein of cinema. His vision is earth shattering, deviating almost completely from the original intentions of the writers of a novel on which the film was based. The ending when it is revealed the reason why one of the guides of the Zone hanged himself despite obtaining a wish from the Room will blow away anyone who lives in the frustrated knowledge of life and all our mortal desires as an empty vainity of vanities without the presence of God and selfless love. The editing, set designs, music and lighting, the human choreography, the wisdom and everything in this film qualifies it as the best film ever made. Totally original without trying to be. If you only watch one film for the rest of your life this has to be it! It will make you want to live better, stirring profound thoughts and feelings within you long after the film's over. This is more than a film, it's almost a miracle. The British label ARTIFICIAL EYE apparently has better English subtitles and shows the complete film without cuts unlike the American version, or so I read.