Stalker

Stalker - 2003-12-03 Subscription Print Director: Andrei Tarkovsky Russia, 1979, Color, 161 minutes Tarkovsky is undoubtedly one of the pioneers of the science fiction genre in cinema, a filmmaker who, beyond the philosophical construction of his films, has always utilized a unique perspective and evolved the vocabulary of this cinema. "Stalker" is his second film after Solaris, a Dantean journey to an unknown and mysterious area akin to the Bermuda Triangle, referred to in the film simply as "the Zone." The "Zone" is a limbo between the dilapidated slums left over from the industrial revolution and the wet, dark forests of the Paleolithic era, protected by military personnel and barbed wire. The reason for all this obsession and concern is that the "Zone" is a dangerous place where great mirages and intellectual traps lie in the path of every traveler, and only special guides (Stalkers) can successfully penetrate the Zone and lead pilgrims to its heart. At the center of the Zone is a building called "the Room," whose greatest property is that it can fulfill the innermost desires and wishes of anyone who enters it. Of course, it is evident that there are significant exaggerations in this film. For instance, as a cinema viewer in the postmodern era, I personally do not place much value on generic names like "the Zone" and "the Room." However, this does not significantly detract from this masterpiece, as Stalker is fundamentally a film that is overly fluid, greedy, uncompromising, and pessimistic, while simultaneously challenging all the viewer's prejudices and assumptions about cinema. A critic once said that life without seeing "Stalker" is an incomplete experience because this film is one of the wonders of modern cinema. After watching this film, I was compelled to accept this assessment.