Stalker is a 1979 Science Fiction movie directed by Andrei Tarkovsky.
Stalker tells the story of a journey to find a mysterious forbidden area known as The Zone, where a secret room can grant visitors their deepest desires. The Stalker guides a Writer and Professor to the area, where they each confront their greatest insecurities and fears.
Stalker may be the most desolate, desperate, depressing movie ever that is somehow incredibly hopeful.
The opening scene perfectly sets a bleak tone. The Stalker quietly arises from bed in a grim apartment, trying not to wake his wife and crippled daughter. The wife knows he’s abandoning her again. She confronts him, he relents. He leaves and she crumples to the ground, thrashing her body and cursing her fate.
Tarkovsky’s choice of color is fascinating. The entire scene – along with the first 25 minutes of the movie – are painted in a monochrome sepia. The smoky, smudged windows and broken wall plaster in the apartment are vividly defined. This is a broken down place filled with hopeless people.
The early exterior scenes amplify this atmosphere. Factories are seen in the background and a haze of industrial smoke floats by. We meet The Writer, who is trying to seduce a young woman by lamenting the lack of the supernatural in society. “Don’t hope for flying saucers. That would be too interesting.”
Continue reading “Stalker”