Stalker (1979)

A guide leads two men through an area known as the Zone to find a room that grants wishes.

Director:

Andrey Tarkovskiy

Writers:

Arkadiy Strugatskiy (novel), Boris Strugatskiy (novel),

Stars:

Alisa Freyndlikh, Aleksandr Kaydanovskiy, Anatoliy Solonitsyn

Top 250 #209 | 2 wins & 1 nomination.

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Alisa Freyndlikh	...	Zhena Stalkera
Aleksandr Kaydanovskiy	...	Stalker
Anatoliy Solonitsyn	...	Pisatel
Nikolay Grinko	...	Professor
Natasha Abramova	...	Marta, doch Stalkera
Faime Jurno	...	Sobesednitsa Pisatelya (as F. Yurna)
E. Kostin	...	Lyuger, khozyain kafe
R. Rendi	...	Patrulnyy politseyskiy

Storyline

Near a gray and unnamed city is the Zone, an alien place guarded by barbed wire and soldiers. Over his wife's numerous objections, a man rises in the dead of night: he's a stalker, one of a handful who have the mental gifts (and who risk imprisonment) to lead people into the Zone to the Room, a place where one's secret hopes come true. That night, he takes two people into the Zone: a popular writer who is burned out, cynical, and questioning his genius; and a quiet scientist more concerned about his knapsack than the journey. In the deserted Zone, the approach to the Room must be indirect. As they draw near, the rules seem to change and the stalker faces a crisis.

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Plot Keywords:

stalker | hope | scientist | barbed wire | alien | 

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Genres:

Adventure | Drama | Fantasy | Mystery | Sci-Fi

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Certificate:

Not Rated

Details

Country:

Soviet Union

Language:

Russian

Release Date:

17 April 1980 (Netherlands)

Also Known As:

Сталкер

Filming Locations:

Dolgopa, Russia

Box Office

Budget:

RUR 6,000,000 (estimated)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Kinostudiya ''Mosfilm''

Technical Specs

Runtime:

163 min 155 min (2002 DVD)

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color (Sovcolor) Black and White Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The original negatives were destroyed (by a processing error at the laboratory) and the film had to be shot again from scratch with a new director of photography.

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Quotes

[first lines]
Stalker's Wife: [sub-titled from Russian] Why did you take my watch?

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Connections

Referenced in Die Tochter (2008)
The "Stalker" did not come back from the zone. 25 years later his daughter searches for his clues.

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Soundtracks

"La Marseillaise"
Written by Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle

User Reviews

An interesting interview on the DVD

The Region 2 Artificial Eye DVD includes interesting interviews with the cameraman and production designer. The production designer reveals that the film was completed only to be destroyed because it had been shot on experimental Kodak and couldn't be developed - a whole year's work was ruined. He proposes the possibility that the authorities of the time didn't want it to be developed. The incident nearly destroyed Tarkovsky. He was finally persuaded to go back and film a new Stalker, this time on a shoestring budget.

What does the film mean? Ask me again when I've watched it maybe ten times.

Certainly the Zone means more to Stalker than the Room. The Room is his living, but the Zone is an escape, a sanctuary from the noisy, industrial rusting slum where he lives (captured brilliantly in metallic sepia). In the Zone everything eventually returns to nature - like a pastoral coral reef growing on a battleship lichen and mosses engulf factory buildings and tanks. His first action on arriving there is to leave the other two occupied while he communes with the natural things growing in the zone, the grasses, the dew, the soil, the tiny worm that dances head-over-tail down his hand.

A beautiful, great and puzzling film. But then if it revealed all its secrets straight off then, apart from the beautiful visuals and the soundtrack it would be pointless watching it again. Great art only leaches out its secrets gradually and only to those with the desire to learn them.