Stalker (1979)

Director:

Andrei Tarkovsky

Writers:

Arkadi Strugatsky (novel) &
Boris Strugatsky (novel) ...

Release Date:

17 April 1980 (Netherlands)

Genre:

Adventure | Drama | Fantasy | Mystery | Sci-Fi

Plot:

Near a gray and unnamed city is the Zone, an alien place guarded by barbed wire and soldiers. Over his wife's numerous objections...

Plot Keywords:

Stalker | Hope | Alien | Barbed Wire | Scientist

Awards:

2 wins & 1 nomination

Cast

Aleksandr Kaidanovsky	...	Stalker
Alisa Frejndlikh	...	Stalker's Wife
Anatoli Solonitsyn	...	Writer
Nikolai Grinko	...	Scientist
Natasha Abramova	...	Martha, Stalker's daughter
Faime Jurno
Ye. Kostin
R. Rendi

Also Known As:

Сталкер (Soviet Union: Russian title)

Runtime:

163 min

Country:

West Germany | Soviet Union

Language:

Russian

Color:

Color (Sovcolor) | Black and White | Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Italy:T | Iceland:L | UK:A (1980) | UK:PG (1991) | Australia:M | Australia:PG (DVD rating) | South Korea:15 | Argentina:13 | Chile:14 | Finland:K-12 | Sweden:15 | West Germany:12 | Hong Kong:I | Singapore:PG

Filming Locations:

Dolgopa, Russia

Company:

Gambaroff-Chemier Interallianz

Trivia:

The Zone of the film was inspired by a nuclear accident that took place near Chelyabinsk in 1957. Several hundred square kilometers were polluted by fallout and abandoned; of course there was no official mention of this forbidden zone at the time.

Quotes:

Writer: My conscience wants vegetarianism to win over the world. And my subconscious is yearning for a piece of juicy meat. But what do I want?

Movie Connections:

Featured in Uzak (2002)

Soundtrack:

Bolero

great masterpiece from greatest director

i want to say somethings about the most poetic,philosophical and intuitive director, tarkovsky and his movies ,especially Stalker.

first of all, we must all know that, tarkovsky is not for all. his poetic understanding of life and human and putting this understanding to his movies is unique in the world for my opinion. one of the most poetic and philosophical movies of him, Stalker is that kind of movie. it is like a poem written with objects. we must feel before we try to understand.

opening sequence of film contains some kind of expressionist objects with related the moral and inner conditions of the people living in the town . the "dirty" black and white take gives the viewers ,the mood of people having nothing to live, nothing to believe and nothing to give others.and the aggressive green take in the "zone" gives another vision of the life. the camera moves very slow to make us to go into to film and feel the film. tarkovsky's usage of objects and colours is very different and that is why i think he was a cinema poet. on the other hand, in addition to this "poem written with objects", the film also has very deep philosophical content. what is life,what is human, what is goodness, what is selfishness, what is devotion, what are the bases of our civilizations etc. and people are made to think all these things, not mostly with dialogs but with objects and colours and complete vision.

for example, the three objects shown while the camera goes into the water ,but actually to the heart of human being and we see one cringe, one gun and one religious icon. and these are the metaphors of the human civilizations for my opinion. and all the journey into to the "zone" and finally "room" , actually done into the human being. into our selfishness,into our subconsciousness, our badness,our goodness, our weak and strong parts. actually i can feel that , the things searched in this movie are our lost innocence . the stalker is the only people who believes something and needs to believe .and actually the journey itself is a fake. to go to the truth,faith,justice, goodness are being related with innocence in that movie. the microcosms shown poetically in the water is another metaphor shows human being's selfish behaviour. because human, destroys the things,destroys the innocence, destroys the world living around them.our today's civilization broke our strong cooperation with nature and changed this relationship to a nature disaster. the movie gives the message of the need of mercy to all the living and even non-living things in our nature. because human being's salvation is only related with that.

and the need of hope, need of believe is human being's basic needs. and our modern world destroyed all the hopes and believes. the movie contains metaphors making us to feel and think about those needs.and the most critical thing is felt in the film that self-denial is the basic need in our world.and unfortunately this value is lost and needed to be re-gain.

i can tell about all the metaphors in the movie but no need. because every person understand those things different like kafka's novels. and we just need to watch the movie with no prejudice but with open heart.

i recommend this film to all the cinema-lovers. i recommend also not to try to understand this film. only leave yourself to this great poem and it will give you all you need.