Film Review: Stalker (1979)
Faith in a Hopeless World
What purpose does faith serve? That is one of the questions asked in Andrei Tarkovsky's 1979 sci-fi film 'Stalker'. The film follows an unnamed protagonist who works as and is called a "stalker". Stalkers act as illegal smugglers to bring their clients to "the Zone" and later inside the Zone "the Room", where their deepest and innermost desires are fulfilled. Our protagonist brings in a writer and a professor, both referred to by their job titles.
The film acts without much context to its characters. Stalker has a wife who begs him to quit working and help care for their deformed daughter, however, he persists. It is never directly revealed to us his motivations for working in such harsh conditions for seeming low pay nor why he doesn't simply use the Room himself. The film's plot is undoubtedly straightforward, yet its runtime clocks in at an astonishing 161 minutes. The director, Tarkovsky, knows this and uses it to his full advantage. The first shot is medium wide containing no action nor dialogue, yet lasting for over three minutes. Some shots are even longer. Indeed, Tarkovsky is quoted as having said "The film needs to be slower and duller at the start so that the viewers who walked into the wrong theater have time to leave before the main action starts."
The film is filled with long takes, close-ups, forward dollies, and slow-moving shots. Tarkovsky reminds us of his previous work 'Mirror', a slower and better film full of flashbacks, dream-like sequences, flash-forwards, montages, and long takes. Andrei Tarkovsky, whose father Arseny was a famous Russian poet, is known as a master of poetic cinema. Take for example his "floating scene" in 'Solaris' and the last sequences of 'Ivan's Childhood' and 'Andrei Rublev'. Stalker is no exception. The film has incredible editing holding and lingering on certain shots longer than expected. It contains multiple dream-like sequences with top-down tracking shots, dollies, and profiles. It contains a slow filmmaking language preferring to have the camera on a tripod or dolly rather than gimbals and steadicams, in fact, the film holds no handheld shots. The cinematography seen on screen is shot gorgeously by Alexander Knyazhinsky. It uses dark shadows paired with harsh lighting. The film's first act, set outside the Zone, where martial law, abandoned buildings, and poverty, are rampant, is symbolically shot in a sepia monochromatic tone. The scenes inside the Zone are shot in color, similar to that seen in 'The Wizard of Oz'. What is seen inside the frame is wonderful production design. We watch bleak buildings, winding roads, and the chaotic Zone full of grass, water, and an abandoned nuclear power plant. The Zone reminds us of our habitat and its further corruption.
Yet 'Stalker' is far more than a mere technical showoff. It tackles faith at its core with plenty of Christian symbols sprinkled through, e.g. the crosses borne in the Zone. The movie may be viewed as an allegory of a missionary tackling hope in a faithless world. The world's lack of color is in direct contrast to that of the Zone, which serves as a sort of salvation. The Zone is natural yet ugly, appearing like a wasteland as abandoned as faith in its world. A lesser script would have made this an action film, but 'Stalker' slows down and takes its time. The writer and the professor represent two sides of the same human coin: one emotional and the other rational. Though, by the climax of the film they both seem to have lost faith in the Zone and the Room as shown astounding wide long take that must not be spoiled. Tarkovsky, a Christian himself, never explicitly states the film's views, only showing the stalker's perspective. Is the world's demise due to a lack of faith or is causality reversed? We do not know and Tarkovsky is not interested in answering the question.
The final shot of the film is one of the most meaningful shots in all of cinema. We see the stalker's daughter leaning on a table through a close-up. We zoom out seeing three glasses moving unmotivated. One may wonder if the girl has some form of telekinetic ability. We zoom out further and hear a rumbling noise. A train or subway system is to be suspected. I believe there are two main interpretations. The first states that whatever caused the noise also caused the glasses to move, after all, light travels faster than sound. It is blunt and logical, the professor's view of the world. Science and rationale keep intact. The second is more fantastical. The girl has a telekinetic ability. Unlike her father, she is mostly seen in color. It represents the divine and unknown. We see the future the youth hold. She is young, innocent, and seemingly gifted. Through faith, the young are empowered. Like Tarkovsky before me, I once again ask you this question: Is the bleakness of the world caused by its lack of faith, or is its lack of faith caused by its bleakness?