Chasing Truth on a Drasline

10/10 Stars. “Stalker/Сталкер” - Andrei Tarkovsky.

Welcome to The Zone.

Andrei Tarkovsky was one of the leading auteurs of his generation, but remains relatively unknown in the west. His works are often classified as “difficult” films. They indeed are. Stalker is a spectacular work of art but it is demanding, subtle and open to interpretation in many ways. Tarkovsky is at the height of his exceptional powers in this film. Stalker’s beauty is that it combines all aspects of film sight, sound, editing and story to the point that it becomes very difficult to intelligently separate them. Much is said visually and inner thoughts are conveyed by environmental sounds. Stalker’s greatness lies in its unity; it is a truly holistic film.

The basic conceit of the work is deceptively simple. Years ago something very strange (and possibly extra-terrestrial) happened in the middle of an unnamed countryside. The Government cordoned off the area and guards it strictly. Naturally, urban legend waxed fantastic on the details and it is widely alleged that in the center of this area—which has been christened “The Zone”—lies a room where wishes come true. The narrative follows an anonymous guide and his two clients as they travel from the grimy city, through the lush, verdant Zone to the building housing the all-important Room. The sparseness of the exposition permits and encourages interpretation of nearly every aspect of Stalker including the true nature of The Zone. Is it to be understood in science-fictional terms, such as by a U.F.O. landing, or metaphysical? Is it even real? we never know for sure.

Since The Zone is said to be dangerous it only stands to reason that guides, called “stalkers”, are hired for the journey. Stalker is the stalker, we never learn his name, he is married (his wife strenuously objects to his profession) and has one one daughter “Monkey” (a cripple, it is whispered that her deformity is an effect of her father’s visits to The Zone.) Stalker claims that The Zone is kind to him because he is “broken” and clearly has a special relationship with the place, demanding it be treated with respect. Stalker views his mission in terms of faith, believing that what he does helps the hopeless. Stalker represents religion.

Stalker.

Stalker’s charges, known only as Writer and Professor, represent art and science. Writer seeks his lost creative edge and Professor seemingly wants to win the Nobel prize. Writer is of a suspicious and caustic sort, openly skeptical of Stalker’s precautions and of The Zone. Professor is more deferential to his eccentricities; he also has a hidden motivation.

The plot superficially seems to have logical phases and to have an internal history that moves in a straight line. However, normal spatial and temporal cues are garbled in keeping with the dream-world logic of The Zone and the director’s theories of film. Tarkovsky did not rely on traditional narrative techniques, favoring a self-developed methodology he called “Sculpting in Time”. Tarkovsky’s works, therefore, are not to be understood as visual novels but as specifically cinematic works.

The Birds

The city-scenes that open the film and set up the plot occurrences are shot in monochrome film stained dark brown and are earthy and tactile in nature. Photography only switches to color when the characters arrive in The Zone, which is shot vivdly in lush verdant greens and natural tones. This somewhat odd use of color is both an artifact of the very limited budget and of a specific intent. The brown dirtiness of the city emphasizes a major metanarrative theme present in many of Tarkovsky’s works: the exodus from a depersonalizing civilization and the journey towards the absolute truth of, and in, nature.

The fabled Zone is an unexpectedly ordinary place. It seems to be nothing more than a nice little meadow with a half dozen bombed out tanks and some abandoned buildings and powerlines. There’s even a stream with a picture-postcard waterfall. Is it anything more than this? We never know for sure. Stalker insists that The Zone is extremely dangerous and takes extravagant precautions, including a highly circuitous route to protect against unspecified harm, but there is no reason to believe his assertions. Nothing overtly menacing actually happens and indeed little sense of threat exists at all. When Writer insists on trying a more direct route to The Room all that happens is that the wind picks up, though he turns back. When Professor goes back for his backpack Stalker considers him lost… only to discover him waiting for them patiently at the next stop, backpack in hand.

It is here, in The Zone, that time and space dissolve. Careful editing disguises the physical layout of the journey and it becomes impossible to determine how much time the journey is taking. The dream logic is exemplified by the threefold scene by the tile wall. From a linear standpoint it seems to be three separate scenes but filmically it makes the most sense if it is regarded as one. Time is not sensible here, but Tarkovsky constructs his universe so holistically and so well that we never question its illogicality until leaving the cinema, indeed we revel in it.

The film’s climax takes place just outside the door to The Room. Professor’s true intentions are revealed. The men argue fiercely even coming to blows as Stalker’s claim to moral goodness is attacked by Writer and the men realize just what entering The Room entails. This is the philosophical and intellectual heart of the movie: what if you did get your innermost wish? Would it make you happier? Maybe it would, maybe not. What point would there be to life after that? Perhaps the room is a bad place.

One of the most prominent characteristics of the film’s style is its extremely long takes. One take in the scene outside The Room lasts for almost four minutes and most cuts are at least one minute long as opposed to the nauseatingly rapid cutting that is favored by modern popular cinema and by contemporaneous Soviet dogma. Tarkovsky’s editing is not directly noticeable. While we notice its effects in scrambling time and place we do not notice the editing itself; we never think, “Ah, a cut.” The drasline ride between the city and The Zone feels like a single extremely long take but upon closer examination reveals itself as five separate takes unobtrusively edited together to act as one!

The music, sound and vision merge to the point that they cannot be separated at all. The long takes and subtle camera movement and the highly stylized lighting and colorization effects blur together organically into a cinematic whole. In the dazzling four minute take just outside The Room the music disappears while characters slump on the floor surrounded by heard-but-not-seen songbirds as the camera slowly pulls back, both visually diminishing the men and separating us from them. The birds stop and the scene takes on a brown cast reminiscent of the city scenes—even Stalker is filled with angst, the strong back light reduces the group further, turning them into to mere outlines. The natural color quickly returns, though as a sudden cloudburst rains down through the broken roof before passing. Professor throws an object into the water and only then does a cut occur. A fish is seen in closeup examining the thrown object as the strains of Ravel’s Bolero burst forth, mixing in and out of the equally incongruous sounds of a train and of construction works, signaling the impending, abrupt transition back to the city. Any other director would have butchered this but Tarkovsky, also his own production designer, mesmerizes us with a characteristically beautiful but uncompromisingly stark image.

Expiation or Purification?

Even in closing Stalker and Stalker puzzle and enchant us as we learn more about his wife’s motivations and why she has stayed with him in spite of his frequent disappearances and implied incarceration. We even learn a little more about his daughter, though her actions are as ambiguous as everything else and raise more questions then they answer. The ending again melds all filmic elements into a sum greater than its parts, sound and vision and action and dialogue are united

Stalker combines all elements of its medium in perfect unity that has hardly ever been rivaled. While it is tempting to attempt a once-and-for-all definitive interpretation this is likely futile and certainly pointless. The impenetrability of the film represents the impenetrability of it subject, three broken humans. We are immersed in the film but curiously separated from it. The interpretation is left to the viewer. Tarkovsky strips his work down to its very essence, removing everything that could distract and focusing on his core methodology. While not for the impatient, for others the product is a sheer joy to behold.

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