Film and feelings: Stalker (1979)
I recently acquired the criterion release of Stalker (1979), a film I have not seen since I was a teenager. I remember liking it back then, but I didn't appreciate how much it would simultaneously wash over me as well as work it's way into the back of my mind, like an eel of a tone poem.
For those who have not seen Stalker, it is a journey of three men into a mysterious and beautiful "Zone" in search of their deepest desires.
I full throatedly recommend. Gorgeous film.
While the symbolism has been thoroughly discussed elsewhere on the internet, a less talked about aspect (of this and other films) is how it makes the viewer feel.
For me personally, the three moments that most affected me on a visceral level all involve people lying down.
Why, I'm not sure.
But they are: The scene where The Stalker lays in the tall grass, I felt such a calm bliss as he soaked in the lush green nature of The Zone;
The scene where The Stalker sleeps on a tiny dry piece of ground in a large flooded canal, I felt a sense of sublime misery. The only thing I could compare it to is when you get suddenly awoken when you haven't had enough sleep, and have to go out into the cold early morning still nodding off, and nothing feels real;
and third is the lingering shot of the dog sitting guard over the entwined bodies near The Room.
I felt a profound longing sadness. I imagined that the entwined lovers died together in some relation to their deepest desire.
I really love films that wash over the viewer in this way like a tide, and I hope that some of you do as well.
Another film that has a similar aspect is Upstream Color (2013), and while the creative mind behind that film is....perhaps a mentally unwell abuser, I can't dismiss the art he has created. I guess my relationship with his work is complicated.
How do you Feel about stalker?
Are there any films that had a similar effect on you as this one did to me?
Always looking for recommendations!
Tarkovski has such a deep impact on me. He's an esoteric Christian and, as such, profoundly Platonistic. Stalker makes me anxious, I wish to break the bond of matter and look beyond the curtain. I am taken by a frenzy, and cannot sleep. It is exhilarating but not exactly pleasurable. Like falling in love (a disease we want), your boundaries become permeable and imprecise. You are one with the object of your love.
My body is not enough to contain such a tremendous impulse.
For some reason, Stalker always makes the rounds on Tildes. But all of his movies deserve to be seen. Zerkalo, Solaris, The Steamroller and the Violin. So many masterpieces.
I can really appreciate your description here, it's beautiful and terrible!
That is similar to how Annihilation makes me feel, although that film is a bit more...obvious, perhaps? The viiiibe is what lands with me in a similar way
Hi, I wanted to jump in here because, There are two kind of crazy resonances here for me. And, elsewhere in this thread I was actually like "ja wohl, I'm too old for this glacially paced existentialistic stuff," but: I am; 1) more or less an echt Christian more Aristotelian than Platonist and 2) I had immediately thought "you know, I'd never thought about it consciously but you know what resonated with Stalker is, Annihilation."
All of which is an ex-redditor's way of saying, "perhaps I should be revisiting Tarkovsky instead of beeing all snoo-snoo."
I'm surprised and not surprised that they are so similar energetically.
Stalker is an adaptation of the novel Roadside Picnic, which also inspired the novel Annihilation. Although the novel feels dreamlike, the movie infuses the material with more of the self destructive elements. It's like a nightmare dream impression of the book, so I think that's really where the feel of stalker and annihilation blend.
Full movie available on YouTube
Also, a bit of "self promotion", but for those interested in reading the source material to Tarkovski's Stalker (and the S.T.A.L.K.E.R video games):
Tildes Pop-up Book Club: Roadside Picnic, by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky
It's a pretty short book (242 pages) and there are still 3 weeks left before I make the discussion thread. So if anyone here wants to join in, we would be glad to have you. :)
It's interesting because I'm about a decade out from my last viewing of Stalker, so how I feel about it would be more grounded had I recently seen it. I'm also very much in that uncanny territory of having a "tone poem" memory of it, though less like an eel fluidly lurking beneath the mythic mind, and more like "those meadowy murmurs on the ruined wind, with thoughts of you fading, though we once lived."
To answer your recommendation question first, but with feeling: Tarkovsky's Mirror felt similarly dreamlike and meditative, haunted, beautifully sad, and also interested in the ephemeral mundanity of the human condition. Paris, Texas left me with something similar too ... love and life amongst the ruins. Long dusty stretches of the land out west, the lonesome beating of the living heart. The bereavements of time. Loss as a "long, drawn-out goodbye, but in a waking dream." I also recommend Chris Marker's La Jetée and Sans Soleil, both stylistically different from Stalker and each other, but both glimpsing at living in the aftermath of living - an aftermath one can't escape.
Can I also recommend the video game Disco Elysium to you? If you play it with an open heart, it's all there, this stuff I'm thinking about Stalker. And also, music-wise, The Caretaker's Selected Memories from the Haunted Ballroom.
I feel sad and grateful and weirdly reassured by Stalker. I feel deeply alone watching it and Mirror, and kind of okay with being alone. It's the type of film that keeps me up at night afterward, longing to go back specifically because I can't go back. If I could go back in time, would Stalker hit differently? I think so. I think a lot about that final scene in the film, which - and I never knew if this was apocryphal or not - but apparently that "snow fall" is pollution from the nearby power plant, which was possibly radioactive, and is said to have later led to the deaths of many of the cast and crew via cancer. Is this true? Was this known when they filmed it?
I'd recommend joining that reading group on Roadside Picnic that another person mentioned here.. Ah, I see from another comment you've read it. I read Roadside Picnic after seeing the movie, and I thought it was quite good. It gave me a baseline impression of the political statements the film conveyed. I think part of what was so haunting about Stalker, to me, is that those statements are present in the film yet universalised in a way that moves the soul itself.Thank you so much for the recommendations!
I'm adding Mirror, Paris Texas, La Jetée, and sans Soleil to my list.
As for Disco Elysium, I struggle with video games of most sorts; I was never allowed them growing up, so I don't speak the language, and just end up discouraged.
But I will also read Roadside Picnic (the comment you mentioned is referring to Annihilation, though I now see that I was unclear).
The caretaker makes me legitimately sad, so I'll check them out one day, I promise.
As for the snow in the film, I'm pretty sure that is seed material from a species of tree like cottonwood, or similar.
The majority of the film was filmed in a decommissioned hydroelectric plant which was probably heavily contaminated. Considering they filmed it three times, that would explain why so many people became I'll.
I just watched this for the first time in many years again last month. I really like movies with these slow, enveloping scenes because they're designed to do exactly as OP said - to make the viewer feel something by association, not just being shown characters with emotions (or even worse, being told how to feel by dialogue or music).
It is this delicate balance of hope (to find the room), of fear (of the zone), and ultimately of nihilism - they are presented with the door to paradise, and they just refuse to walk in. There is something very human about this, denoting both the shame and doubt that being presented with this induces (e.g., would having all your desires met reduce your humanity? What happens next?) and the very human experience that happiness is ultimately being happy with what you have, rather than something you can just acquire. Though through a very soviet lens, here.
It's a very interesting study by omission of what is said, much like a lot of Tarkovsky's other work. I have a soft spot for this movie, it's simple but effective. And the direction is absolutely masterful - it is a lesson to any budding filmmaker on how to make something even mundane, totally compelling.
It's hard for me to separate my feelings out about Stalker. Suffice to say, they are intense and there are a lot of them. I related strongly with what you wrote. For me, it's the ending telekinesis scene. There is something truly masterful about it. This strange and inexplicable event, all the stagnant pools of water, those impacted me much more than the long dialogues. The presence of animals in Tarkovsky's films is something that I dare not speculate about, like the dogs in Stalker and Solaris and the horses in Andrei Rublev, but their presence is full of emotional resonance and meaning.
I wanted to mention that if anything involving the dog in the film impacted you, I strongly recommend Nostalghia. The ending shot involves a dog, and I think that particular shot is the most powerful thing Tarkovsky ever filmed.
There's only one thought I have about Stalker.
I saw it in college in a big lecture hall that showed movies on the weekends.
I sat in the same place to see Stalker as I did when they showed "A Night at the Opera."
When that movie got out, there was this guy who's now an ivy league professor of philosophy sitting right behind me, and he quoted a (not very prominent) line from the movie to me: "he pulled a knife on me, so I shot him."
He'll never remember, but while I have many thoughts about "A Night at the Opera" that crowd that one out, somehow it's the only thought I have in my middle-aged brain about "Stalker."
That's interesting how an impression transfered to the other film, simply because you were sitting in the same spot. Unless I am misunderstanding...
Do you think you'll ever revisit stalker?
There was a time in my life when slow-paced and cerebral films were really appealing. And! Don't get me wrong! I'm totally in favor of them. A+. But: that time in my life is over. The only one of his movies that still resonates with me is the one that starts off with "Erbarme dich, mein Gott"
And the only reason that movie -- "Sacrifice," I now recall -- sticks with me -- is because yes, starting your movie off with basically all of "Erbarme dich" is <chef's kiss>
I despise it. But then, I am the impercipient. OP stands in a company upfingered, crying, "Hark, hark, the glorious distant sea!"
Tis but yon dark and windswept pine to me.