Andrei Tarkovsky’s definitive picture, in my estimation, Stalker offers an apocalyptically eerie argument that there is something more than the material world. The ideas are dense, but the plot is simple: a man known as Stalker (Aleksandr Kaydanovskiy) leads a Writer (Anatoly Solonitsyn) and a Professor (Nikolai Grinko) into a quarantined zone in search of a room that is said to grant wishes. Working with cinematographer Aleksandr Knyazhinskiy, Tarkovsky transitions from sooty sepia outside of the zone to lush color inside, setting the stage for some of his most arresting images (a space filled with mounds of sand, into which a flying bird is inexplicably edited; glasses on a table, which inexplicably begin to move). The trio makes it to the fabled room, but it turns out not to be the genie they expect. What, then, is it? Given the theological references that have peppered the film—the Writer’s Pauline monologue about knowing he should eat vegetables but wanting a “juicy steak;” a voiceover quoting Revelation 6; the climactic use of Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy”—I’d suggest the room offers an encounter with the Divine. How to respond? The way I tend to respond to Tarkovsky’s movies: with awe.
(6/26/2025)
