Search - Stalker: A Film by Andrei Tarkovsky on DVD

Brothers Karamazov visit Chernobyl

Joseph Heaney | Jacksonville, FL United States | 12/24/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"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!"

Yes, I do have better drugs....

Wayne A. | Belfast, Northern Ireland | 08/22/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I love the trash review directly below! And I always stupidly thought it was drugs and sophomoric attitudes that made films like this impossible for some people.



Working with next to nothing, Tarkovsky conjures up a unique film experience. Imagine a visually magical film about the search for the Grail filmed in someones backyard--it's kind of like that. In some respects it's a bit like Godard's Alphaville...but only in some. It's certainly not a film to "get," but one to get lost in and I think that's why it frustrates a lot of viewers who sometimes think every intelligent film is a puzzle that needs to be worked out. Some film-goers need to understand that one can't always be poetic and linear/literal (I say "can't always" to be ironic). Hard point to make in the world's most unpoetical linear/literal society.



Tarkovsky is a master of the tangential, the sublime, the surreal--anything but the direct. I've watched this film nearly a dozen times and I can't tell you what most of it is about--especially the ending (which is utterly devastating and quite beautiful). Well, that's not totally true, I've a fair idea what it's vaguely about; in some ways the meaning's as clear as French criticism. It's just elusive too, because people's souls are slippery eels, and souls seem to be an obsession with Tarkovsky.



I'd put hard money on this being a great film but it's tough to prove it, especially using the Procrustean critical and analytical tools we find scattered around the garage today (The "Boring-ometer," or the "Left-handed PC Gauge") People who strongly dislike it seem to be of two camps: one is the sort of ADD group that can't handle long, slow movies with little visceral stimulation; it's a valid lifestyle for many but insufficient grounds for condemning anything*. The other camp consists of a type that's been with us since the cave man or woman discoverer of the wheel was given one star on Amazon.rock for creating a pointless spinning thing that made folks dizzy. There's no response available to complaints that a complex, advanced, or visionary work of art is "boring," "artsy," or "pretentious." The reviewer is writing--quite validly and no irony intended--to his or her equals and they should listen keenly. My dog, Alphonse, once reviewed a Beethoven symphony and described it as "meaningless and annoying low-frequency noise with no hope of dinner or treat implied in its raucous ending" and since that was published (in The New Yorker, no less!) no other dog has bothered to listen to the "Eroica." My cat hates paintings by Mondrian because the artist didn't leave enough texture on the canvas to sharpen ones nails on. The mice, however, love Pollock. To each according to their needs and abilities.



[* I recently suggested to the Turner folks that since colorizing worked so well to bring boring old black and white films to the attention of the easily distracted (Or "Differently Attentive" as the PC folks say), that we should, uh, "stimulize" slow-moving old films. This would involve say, adding footage of car crashes and explosions, maybe even a graphic decapitation to "Twelve Angry Men" or re-editing "Jane Eyre" so that it looked like an MTV video. We could easily digitally minimize clothing so that "Miracle on 42nd Street" could get an R rating and an audience. Just a thought]









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