SHERDOG MOVIE CLUB: Week 123 - Stalker

Loved the book (Roadside Picnic) but the movie was extremely tedious for me.
 
It seems most of you either didn't like it or tapped out. I'm just going to come in a little late here and post this for posterity. For the record @europe1 I really feel this film is special, its not for everyone but its a special gem for certain people.

There is a glass vibrating across a table in the opening and closing scenes. In the opening scene it looks caused by a train passing by. Stalker's wife doesn't want him to obsess about The Zone anymore and she says he will either be dead or in prison and she sobs to which Stalker replies, there are prisons for me everywhere and walks out. Zhena collapses into the floor sobbing and cursing his name as another train speeds by. The opening is bookended by the sound of 2 trains and Tarkovsky is able to frame a drab scene in a rundown apartment where we learn Stalker has a wife he doesn't want to be with and a daughter who appears to be one of the reasons he stays and also why he wants to go into The Zone.

Before they start traveling to the Zone the Professor tells the Writer that they live in a boring world so there can be no telepathy, apparitions, or flying saucers. He says the world is ruled by cast-iron laws and its a shame they are never violated because they don't know how to be violated. It seems like this is a clever one sentence way of saying that the world is dystopian and controlled with an iron fist. Same as the first scene there is an efficiency in the script to convey a big idea with as few words as possible.

The Writer posits a question to the other two men, "If nobody reads me in 100 years, why bother?" Is there an element of nihilism in him? He's saying, we all die and within 100 years are forgotten. Except for a very small group, everyone dies, and 100 years from now nobody will even speak your name anymore. Whatever you did, however much money you made, where you went to school, gone as if it never happened. He seeks inspiration from the Zone but later he confesses he isn't going into the Zone for inspiration. He goes on to somewhat explain.

There is some tricky word play going on in this particular scene because the Writer asks himself, "What word do I want to use to describe what I seek in the Zone? How would I know the right word for what I want? How would I know that actually I don't want what I want? Or that I actually don't want what I don't want? They are elusive things: the we moment we name them, they disappear, melts, dissolves like a jellyfish in the sun. My consciousness wants vegetarianism to win out over the world but my subconscious is yearning for a piece of juicy meat. But what do I want?" To which the Professor replies, "world domination." Is that what all men want? World domination? The military and police fear the Zone and as Stalker described it, "they stay away, they fear it like the plague."

When the Stalker goes for a walk alone the Professor and Writer talk about him and the Professor tells the Writer that the Stalker's daughter is a mutant, that she is a victim of the Zone and describes her as having no legs. During the same conversation they discuss the Stalker's teacher, who was known as Teacher but later became known as Porcupine. One day he came out of the Zone became immensely rich overnight but then a week later he hanged himself. What a reflection of real life this is because we see it over and over that no matter how wealthy you become, it will not stop you from putting a gun in your mouth. When we think we know what we want, we find that we don't know what we want. Just as the Writer had stated earlier in the film.

The Stalker says a what appears to be a prayer as they get closer to the Zone and it reminds me of the Bible. The same way the Stalker's monologue about only the wretched making it through the Zone alive reminds me of the Bible but he says even the wretched won't make it through if they don't know how to behave.The entire concept of the famous song Amazing Grace is about the Lord saving the wretched and also the scripture about the meek inheriting the Earth comes to mind. (Matthew 5:5) So the Stalker says this prayer.

"Let everything that's been planned come true. Let them believe. And let them have a laugh at their passions. Because what they call passion actually is not some emotional energy but just the friction between their souls and the outside world. And most important, let them believe in themselves. Let them be helpless like children, because weakness is a great thing, and strength is nothing. When a man is just born he is weak and flexible, when he dies, he is hard and insensitive. When a tree is growing its tender and pliant, but when its dry and hard it dies. Hardness and strength are death's companions. Pliancy and weakness are expressions of freshness of being. Because what has hardened will never win."

That prayer Stalker recites is a direct idea from Mark 10:15, "Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein." The idea is the same, that one must come to God weak, and pliant, as a child is or you will never enter the Kingdom of the Lord.

Stalker continuously tells the Professor that he can't go back the same way. They can't travel back home the same way, the Professor can't return and get his backpack because nobody returns the same way in the Zone. There is this pervasive idea that the Zone changes each time through it and there is no going back the way you came, not even a little bit. It seems like the idea here is a metaphor about life. We go forward but there is no returning to the past. We go through the path of our life and for each person its different but there is no going back.

Stalker tells the Professor that the room is only 200 meters away at this point but there is no going straight to it. This is very similar to the idea of coming to the Lord which can be a very difficult and winding path. Now you have to remember, the Professor is a man of science. He has said repeatedly that he doesn't believe in UFO's or the paranormal, he believes in science to which the Stalker tells him, "Give up your empiricism Professor. Miracles are outside empiricism." Its the same clashing of science versus religion that plays out in their conversations throughout the film.

The Writer puts in his 2 cents by saying, "Remember how St. Peter was nearly drowned?" This is a reference to Matthew chapter 14. Jesus is in a boat with the disciples on the sea of Galilee when a storm arises. Jesus is sleeping in the bottom of the boat and the disciples become frightened that the boat is going to sink and they are all going to die so they wake Jesus up and tell him if you really are the son of God then calm this storm. This is the story when Jesus walks on water. Jesus tells peter if he has faith, if he believes then he can walk on water as well and Peter does but when he gets close to Jesus out on the water he faith waivers and he begins to sink.

Matthew 21:21 Jesus answered and said unto them, Verily I say unto you, If ye have faith, and doubt not, ye shall not only do this which is done to the fig tree, but also if ye shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; it shall be done.

Porcupine hangs himself after realizing that only ones innermost wishes come true in the Zone meaning his was for money, not his brother. The Writer tells Stalker, "Render unto Porcupine what is Porcupine's", a direct reference to Jesus saying render unto Caesar what is Caesar's. Mark 12:17, And Jesus answering said unto them, Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's. And they marvelled at him.

At the end Stalker laments that the Writer and the Professor believe in nothing. The Professor didn't believe in his science enough to go into the room and the Writer questioned the Stalker about who told him miracles happened in the room and why would he believe in such nonsense? So everybody's like fuck it, we aren't going in the room but really it was the same fear they had that the government had and why they "stayed away like the plague" from the Zone. Everyone is afraid of their innermost feelings and desires. In the end, it all came down to a question of faith vs. science or secularism.

In the final frame we see Stalker's daughter, "Monkey", moving glasses across the table with her mind, same as we saw in the first scene. This is just after Stalker has his mental breakdown because nobody has faith or hope anymore. Remember, one must go to the Lord as a little child would, weak and pliant, faithful, hopeful. Secondly remember Matthew 21:21, with enough faith one can move mountains. Monkey still has the hope and faith that Stalker lament's the world has lost.
 
I think a main underlying theme was faith. The imagery was highly religious. The Zone was guarded by leaning telephone poles that looked like crucifixes. Religious artifacts could be seen in the long, panning shots of water near the building. The Writer at one point donned a crown of thorns. The Writer was a nihilist, and the Stalker was man searching for people of faith, maybe because faith was his only escape from the bleak reality of his life. Considering the astonishing final two minutes of the film, it is certain that he is a true believer in the Zone and the Room.

Yes, I felt it was definitely centered around faith vs. science or religion vs. secularism and the theme played out over and over during the film when I detailed in the post above. As far as the Stalker being a believer in the power of the room, I think that's true and his daughter even moreso. She moves the glasses just as Jesus said if one had enough faith they could move a mountain. She fits the description of a child coming to the Lord, she is weak and pliant as Stalker described in his prayer while on the way to the Zone, her legs are damaged as well. She's the hope and faith the Stalker is looking for, which is why the glass moves when she commands it to.
 
Right, I am a bit late to the rodeo here, but as anyone who knows me on here will know, I am something of a Tarkovsky fanboy :D Stalker was the first Tark film I seen, and it was the film which really opened my eyes to that kind of cinema. In fact I am staring at a poster of the film in my room right now.

I have only skimmed through the other posts so I am probably treading over used ground here, but I will give my thoughts. Although I haven't freshly rewatched the film other than a few of the scenes in the room. To get it out of the way, it is obviously an extremely beautiful and poetic film (like all his films really). And although all his films have this to a certain degree, I think that Stalker is the one which is most 'melancholic' in it's visuals, there is beauty as well, but the dystopian setting is full of grime, dirt, rust, decaying industrialism etc. It's a strange kind of beauty. This ties in to the main theme of the film for me. Although I do think that the pre-Chernobyl element (or at least some kind of critique of mans impact on the natural world) is probably one element (of course the Zone sections were filmed near an actual toxic power planet which may have led to the premature deaths of Tarkovsky and others who were involved..), I think this is mostly anterior to the religious/spiritual themes of the film. At its core it is a film about transcendence, or mans longing for it in the face of the finite.

Of course the key 'plot point' is the search for the Room, which apparently grants our innermost desires.It seems to me that the Room represents the ineffable in some sense, but there also a sense of absurdity as well. The Stalker himself believes wholeheartedly in the powers of the Zone/Room, he has devoted his entire life to bringing people there to make them happy (in this respect he is like a religious figure, a shaman or a priest, guiding people towards the ineffable/Transcendent). But we don't actually see any of these miracles/powers of the Room first hand (until the powers exhibited by the stalkers daughter in the ambiguous final scene). The two men he is leading are much more cynical however. In a sense it is a ridiculous quest/pilgrimage, yet it is also completely serious - I take some peoples point about the, at times, somewhat overblown dialogue/voiceover. But I think it works for the most part at providing insight into the mental worlds of Writer, Professor and Stalker. Similarly, the science fiction element, which is more present in the original book (I am told, haven't read it) comes from the supposedly alien origins of the Zone and its powers. But Tarkovsky barely touches on this. The origins of the Zone are essentially irrelevant. What is more significant is the impact of the Zone/Room on these individuals...that's why I agree with those who say that the film is perhaps not a sci-fi film at all (unlike Solaris, which has similar themes but which engages much more directly with questions of scientific exploration).

I have skimmed through some of Tarkovsky's diaries and there is a lot of interesting things you can take from there:

Tarkovsky 'Time Within Time: The Diaries 1970–1986' p. 111 said:
“At the moment, I can see a film version of something by the Strugatsky brothers as being totally harmonious in form: unbroken, detailed action, but balanced by a religious action, entirely on the plane of ideas, almost transcendental, absurd, absolute.”

Although some of the most obvious parallels are to Christianity and the nature of faith. I don't think it's necessarily a straight-up allegory either. Tarkovsky was also interested in a lot Eastern religion/philosophy at the time he was writing Stalker. For instance the 'Stalker's Prayer' quotes from the Dao De Jing. edit: just seen @MusterX's post, I agree that there are absolutely Biblical references there too, but you might be interested to know the quoation from the Dao De Jing which is referenced in the Stalker's prayer:

Stalker Prayer said:
"Let everything that's been planned come true. Let them believe. And let them have a laugh at their passions. Because what they call passion actually is not some emotional energy but just the friction between their souls and the outside world. And most important, let them believe in themselves. Let them be helpless like children, because weakness is a great thing, and strength is nothing. When a man is just born he is weak and flexible, when he dies, he is hard and insensitive. When a tree is growing its tender and pliant, but when its dry and hard it dies. Hardness and strength are death's companions. Pliancy and weakness are expressions of freshness of being. Because what has hardened will never win."

Da De Jing said:
A man is born gentle and weak.
At his death he is hard and stiff.
Green plants are tender and filled with sap.
At their death they are withered and dry.


Therefore the stiff and unbending is the disciple of death.
The gentle and yielding is the disciple of life.


Thus an army without flexibility never wins a battle.
A tree that is unbending is easily broken.


The hard and strong will fall.
The soft and weak will overcome.


It might sound like 'idiot philosophy dialogue' (as Bullitt says), and sometimes I agree it can broach on becoming ridiculous (in a way the film kind of references this, where the writer wearily says 'judging by his tone he is going to start sermonizing again...'), but generally I think that there is some interesting philosophy dialogue. But I do also agree that Tarkovsky is most effective when communicating through image itself. Though I think the two are complementary; the philosophical dialogue/pseudo-philosophical babble (depending how you look at it) suggests certain things, or induces a certain state of mind - e.g. "the friction between their souls and the outside world" as Stalker says during the prayer scene, but it's not as if it's really telling you anything necessarily. The glacially slow takes are then a means of inducing a state of meditation/contemplation. The cinematography and long takes have the purpose of attempting to induce the ineffable, in the way Paul Schrader describes as Transcendental Style:

Tarkovsky 'Sculpting in Time' p.37 said:
“Through the image is sustained an awareness of the infinite: the eternal with the finite, the spiritual within matter, the limitless given form.”

This also taps into some of the eastern influences, Tarkovsky was very interested in Haiku for their preciseness of pure image as a means of tapping in to this kind of thing.

There is also a funny one I read somewhere (can't remember where now) where Tarkovsky apparently said some of the deliberately long takes in the opening section were designed to weed out those who had accidentally walked in to the wrong film lol. But the kind of 'meditative'/trance-like state induced by the film is vital. I also can understand why the slowness really tests a lot of peoples patience, or bores the shit out of some people who are into that sort of cinema, but I don't agree that it's akin to Kubrick's use of zoom, or Scorsese's use of slow-motion shots. The long-takes aren't one stylistic device out of many, but are the style of the film. I also like this quote:

Tarkovsky said:
If the regular length of a shot is increased, one becomes bored, but if you keep on making it longer, it piques your interest, and if you make it even longer, a new quality emerges, a special intensity of attention

This 'special intensity of attention' is what separates Tarkovsky's films apart from most others. For me it is certainly is an intense experience watching Stalker, and definitely one worth having. Despite what Bullitt says I think it is a masterpiece, one of Tarkovsky's many. I am delighted to read he has come round it at least a bit though :)
 
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Although I do think that the pre-Chernobyl element (or at least some kind of critique of mans impact on the natural world) is probably one element (of course the Zone sections were filmed near an actual toxic power planet which may have led to the premature deaths of Tarkovsky and others who were involved..)

Yea that's just crazy. I don't think there is any way this film would have been made in a location like that in this day and age.

I think this is mostly anterior to the religious/spiritual themes of the film. At its core it is a film about transcendence, or mans longing for it in the face of the finite.

The entire film views like a meditation. Its deliberate, and slow, and quiet and although this turns off some viewers, it is the essence of the film. The solitude of each shot is only broken up by more philosophy, religion, and its comparison to science and the secular. I don't agree with @Bullitt68 that the dialogue is weak. I found it to be incredibly efficient in its form. Tarkovsky achieved with few words big ideas that have been contemplated by man for generations.

The Stalker himself believes wholeheartedly in the powers of the Zone/Room, he has devoted his entire life to bringing people there to make them happy (in this respect he is like a religious figure, a shaman or a priest, guiding people towards the ineffable/Transcendent).

There are so many references to scripture in this film. The Stalker believes even though he has not seen the power of the room firsthand. This is the core idea of religion, faith.

John 20:29
Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.
 
Which makes no fucking sense. And that this is nonsensical seems to be confirmed by the fact that neither the wretched Writer nor the wretched Professor enter the Room. It's not because they're not wretched that they don't enter the Room; it's because they're wretched. What's more, it's on this trip that they both seem to come to the realization that they're wretched and how wretched they are.

How that squares with the "logic" of the Zone and/or the Room, I have no idea. But that shit from Stalker about the wretched and the weak and all the rest of it has never made sense to me and seems to be flatly contradicted by the film itself.
I think the Stalker was trying to say only truly unhappy, hopeless souls are able to accept what the Room offers. Desire is the root of suffering. If you fear the result of your deepest desire coming true, then you aren't ready. Like Porcupine. The Writer and Professor were far too self centered to "let go" completely like that. Maybe Tyler Durden would have made a better candidate.

They did make it through the Zone, though. Which has me questioning again if the traps are influenced mostly by the Stalker's imagination, and it is his own measure of their worthiness that really matters. I think the revelation of his daughter throws a completely different light on his role throughout the movie.

Yes, I felt it was definitely centered around faith vs. science or religion vs. secularism and the theme played out over and over during the film when I detailed in the post above. As far as the Stalker being a believer in the power of the room, I think that's true and his daughter even moreso. She moves the glasses just as Jesus said if one had enough faith they could move a mountain. She fits the description of a child coming to the Lord, she is weak and pliant as Stalker described in his prayer while on the way to the Zone, her legs are damaged as well. She's the hope and faith the Stalker is looking for, which is why the glass moves when she commands it to.
I wonder if the Stalker ever entered the Room himself and his daughter was the result? Or, would he ever enter the Room to try and save his daughter's legs? Is he afraid his deepest desire would betray her? So many unanswered questions based on that last scene, I can kind of see why it pisses @Bullitt68 off.
 
Been getting absolutely rinsed to celebrate submitting my dissertation recently

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Are you going to try to publish it in a journal or something? Do you have an Academia page where you're going to put it? You've got to pimp that shit now :cool:

and then I have been moving house.

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I moved from Cardiff back to Chicago, and ever since I've been back, I've been helping my mom box up and move all of her shit around her house before it gets painted. I feel like I've been moving for a month solid :mad:

Bullitt's posts have frightened me, not least the utter dismissal of Solaris<6>

Trust me, no one could've been more surprised by my take on Solaris than me. I remember not really liking it the first time around, liking it a bit better the second time around, and then settling on it being Tarkovsky's best the third time around. Now, almost a decade later, viewing #4 has me shocked that I ever really liked it. In fact, I kind of want to rewatch Steven Soderbergh's remake, which I remember thinking was a solid remake. For all I know, I'm going to think that the original is crap and the remake is amazing :eek:

Not to be too harsh but am I the only one who kind of thinks...

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I prefer this reference if it's all the same :D



In all seriousness, though, I'd argue that it's because I have feelings every single day of my life that I'm not fond of Solaris. It's often argued that 2001 is an example of Kubrick's "coldness" and his lack of (human) feeling while Solaris is more about the human condition and more emotional because of it, but my experiences of the two films are exactly the reverse. Solaris feels like an abstract theorization of what a robot thinks feelings are and what human behavior is/looks like while 2001 feels like a profoundly human meditation on what it means to be alive, to think and feel and move through life as a conscious entity. None of the emotionality in Solaris feels genuine, none of the characters seem plausible. HAL has more heart and comes across as more genuinely human than anyone in Solaris.

There is a glass vibrating across a table in the opening and closing scenes. In the opening scene it looks caused by a train passing by. [...] In the final frame we see Stalker's daughter, "Monkey", moving glasses across the table with her mind, same as we saw in the first scene.

What's the "it looks" about there in the first part and what's the "same as we saw in the first scene" about in the second part? Do you think there's a different source of vibration in the opening scene? Do you think Monkey was the one moving everything? Why? And of what significance would it be if she was? What's going on there with her?

Stalker's wife doesn't want him to obsess about The Zone anymore and she says he will either be dead or in prison and she sobs to which Stalker replies, there are prisons for me everywhere and walks out.

That's such a sad and pathetic response from him (which, from the perspective of characterization, I mean in the best way). In keeping with the religion angle, is there something to be said about the person who lives a miserable, dejected life and who only feels good/alive in church? Maybe his wife is right to want him to "come back to reality," to pull an Inception line. But then, as I've mentioned before, the murkiness of reality/fantasy, religious/secular, etc., precludes neat interpretations one way or the other.

Before they start traveling to the Zone the Professor tells the Writer that they live in a boring world so there can be no telepathy, apparitions, or flying saucers. He says the world is ruled by cast-iron laws and its a shame they are never violated because they don't know how to be violated. It seems like this is a clever one sentence way of saying that the world is dystopian and controlled with an iron fist.

I don't get this. By "iron fist," do you mean that it seems like Tarkovsky is trying to indicate that they're living in a Stalinist-type of dictatorial dystopian world with a ruler? I just thought that was a kind of framing device to frame the sense of the "ordinary world" versus the Zone.

Except for a very small group, everyone dies

Though a simple matter of punctuation, reading this portion like this made me think: Who's the very small group of people Muster knows who don't die?

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When we think we know what we want, we find that we don't know what we want.

As an axiom, this is a crock, but as a psychological observation that is true of/for plenty of people, it's spot-on.

Stalker continuously tells the Professor that he can't go back the same way. They can't travel back home the same way, the Professor can't return and get his backpack because nobody returns the same way in the Zone. There is this pervasive idea that the Zone changes each time through it and there is no going back the way you came, not even a little bit. It seems like the idea here is a metaphor about life. We go forward but there is no returning to the past. We go through the path of our life and for each person its different but there is no going back.

<mma4>

Everyone is afraid of their innermost feelings and desires. In the end, it all came down to a question of faith vs. science or secularism.

You say "it all came down to," but, in a "lowest common denominator" kind of way, you don't seem to have reduced the film to its true lowest common denominator. Doesn't it all come down to fear? Whether they're of a "religious" bent (like Stalker) or of a "scientific" bent (like Professor) or of a "pragmatic" bent (like Writer), they're ruled, perhaps even destroyed, by fear, are they not?

At its core it is a film about transcendence, or mans longing for it in the face of the finite.

I buy that as an accurate summation.

The origins of the Zone are essentially irrelevant.

And you don't think that this causes both dramatic and thematic problems for Tarkovsky?

It might sound like 'idiot philosophy dialogue' (as Bullitt says), and sometimes I agree it can broach on becoming ridiculous (in a way the film kind of references this, where the writer wearily says 'judging by his tone he is going to start sermonizing again...'), but generally I think that there is some interesting philosophy dialogue. But I do also agree that Tarkovsky is most effective when communicating through image itself.

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To be fair, as well as to be clear, what I mean by "idiot philosophy dialogue" is not simply that the philosophy being put forth in the dialogue is idiotic. I do mean that for the most part, but more importantly, from the dramatic angle, the "idiot" part comes from how inorganic it is. Compared to someone like Bergman, who masterfully weaves heavy ass ruminations on everything from death to God to love to sex and everything else between and beyond into tightly-plotted narratives with rich and fully fleshed-out characters, Tarkovsky is a painfully inept cine-philosopher.

The glacially slow takes are then a means of inducing a state of meditation/contemplation.

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I know that line of Tarkovsky's that you cite about extending shot lengths well and I can't think of a bigger director fail than that. It's not as preposterous as trying to pass off flicker films as legitimate art, but when the shots drive the story rather than the story driving the shots, you've gone off the rails, and no amount of theoretical gloss will cover over the fact that nobody in their right mind wants to stare at the back of dude's heads.

The cinematography and long takes have the purpose of attempting to induce the ineffable, in the way Paul Schrader describes as Transcendental Style

I actually don't think that Schrader would agree. All of the filmmakers about whom Schrader wrote in conceptualizing a style of film to be referred to as transcendental were focused on narrative. Tarkovsky isn't. In his introduction to the new edition of Transcendental Style in Film, Schrader actually writes about Tarkovsky, and he writes: "Ozu, Bresson, Dreyer, Mizoguchi, De Sica, and the rest used film time to create an emotional or intellectual or spiritual effect. Tarkovsky used film techniques to study time. For Tarkovsky time was not a means to a goal. It was the goal."

<WellThere>

Furthermore, he writes that "film techniques are about 'getting there' - telling a story, explaining an action, evoking an emotion - whereas [what he called earlier "the Tarkovsky long shot"] is about 'being there.'" And, most tellingly, he invokes the more recent conception of "slow cinema" to indicate Tarkovsky's distance from transcendental style: "Tarkovsky's work segued from delayed cut to dead time, from transcendental style to slow cinema."

In short, Tarkovsky's work has certain continuities with transcendental style, but its style is not actually transcendental. It's something else. And is, for that, IMO, something worse. It's actually a more pleasurable, even more exciting, viewing experience for me to watch something like Umberto D., or even Jeanne Dielman, precisely because they're narrative-focused and character-driven rather than pure abstractions with stories and characters propped up as excuses to jerk off with the camera.

Despite what Bullitt says I think it is a masterpiece, one of Tarkovsky's many. I am delighted to read he has come round it at least a bit though :)

And, despite what I just wrote implying that it's just Tarkovsky jerking off with the camera, I really did come around to it :D

Desire is the root of suffering.

Then wouldn't that make the Room the Room of Suffering? Wouldn't that mean that, far from promising salvation/transcendence/what have you, the Room - and, indeed, the Zone itself - can promise nothing but suffering insofar as it's predicated on desire?

See: This is what happens when you make a film rooted in idiot philosophy :confused:

If you fear the result of your deepest desire coming true, then you aren't ready.

So what's worse: Fearing what you desire or desiring at all? And how is any of this to be reconciled by the Room/Zone?

Maybe Tyler Durden would have made a better candidate.

Speaking of films rooted in idiot philosophy:



They did make it through the Zone, though. Which has me questioning again if the traps are influenced mostly by the Stalker's imagination, and it is his own measure of their worthiness that really matters.

But then, based on his breakdown at the end, isn't his "measure of their worthiness" that they're unworthy, in which case, shouldn't they have not made it through the Zone?

I think the revelation of his daughter throws a completely different light on his role throughout the movie.

Yeah, except that it's impossible to know where the light's coming from, who's shining it, or what (if anything) they're trying to illuminate.

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So many unanswered questions based on that last scene, I can kind of see why it pisses @Bullitt68 off.

 
I think the Stalker was trying to say only truly unhappy, hopeless souls are able to accept what the Room offers. Desire is the root of suffering. If you fear the result of your deepest desire coming true, then you aren't ready. Like Porcupine. The Writer and Professor were far too self centered to "let go" completely like that. Maybe Tyler Durden would have made a better candidate.

They did make it through the Zone, though. Which has me questioning again if the traps are influenced mostly by the Stalker's imagination, and it is his own measure of their worthiness that really matters. I think the revelation of his daughter throws a completely different light on his role throughout the movie.

A lot of it would seem really a debate about "inner most desire" and what that might be, Writer basically takes the view that its actually most likely to relate to the darker more selfish parts of the id overriding the more moral personality overlaying them and his guesses about Porcupine do seem likely to be correct.

Again though to me it seems like the film ends up being about the Stalkers changing view of the zone. I think you could argue that he starts off as almost a reflection of the negative views of science, rather than technology being used without thought to moral weight he's using his mystical discover for a cheap easy fix to peoples problems via the rooms wishes without much thought to moral growth. He seems to turn against that and instead come to view the zone more for its worth as a location as a whole away from the modern work he's not suited for.

Really I would say by the end the character who seems wisest to the situation would be the Stalkers wife, at the end she has an air of confidence none of three men do and ultimately I think highlights that at a very basic level she chose the Stalker because for all his faults he's a decent loving person.
 
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Are you going to try to publish it in a journal or something? Do you have an Academia page where you're going to put it? You've got to pimp that shit now :cool:

I am not sure, it's only MA level (though I was told my BA one might be suitable for certain niche history journals with some editing). But I suppose if I do decide to go down the PHD route it would be worth trying to publish some version of them. Of course, it also depends if it's actually any good or not. Still have to wait until I get my feedback lol.

I do have an academia account though, so I have uploaded it if you are curious (of course I have now noticed a few typos :mad:)

https://www.academia.edu/37432519/T...glish_Identity_in_Seventeenth_Century_Ireland


For all I know, I'm going to think that the original is crap and the remake is amazing :eek:

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And you don't think that this causes both dramatic and thematic problems for Tarkovsky?

I suppose not, whatever the mysterious origins of the Zone, it's the impact on the characters which is more important.

To be fair, as well as to be clear, what I mean by "idiot philosophy dialogue" is not simply that the philosophy being put forth in the dialogue is idiotic. I do mean that for the most part, but more importantly, from the dramatic angle, the "idiot" part comes from how inorganic it is. Compared to someone like Bergman, who masterfully weaves heavy ass ruminations on everything from death to God to love to sex and everything else between and beyond into tightly-plotted narratives with rich and fully fleshed-out characters, Tarkovsky is a painfully inept cine-philosopher.

I do agree with that tbf, it is certainly not natural the way in which people speak in Tarkovsky films, nor is masterfully and deftly woven into some a tightly-plotted coherent narrative. But Tarkovsky isn't intending to depict things naturalistically, so I guess I just see it as less important that it should be organic.



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I know that line of Tarkovsky's that you cite about extending shot lengths well and I can't think of a bigger director fail than that. It's not as preposterous as trying to pass off flicker films as legitimate art, but when the shots drive the story rather than the story driving the shots, you've gone off the rails, and no amount of theoretical gloss will cover over the fact that nobody in their right mind wants to stare at the back of dude's heads.

<Fedor23>
Well, what can I say, I find effective and engaging lol. Don't get me wrong it can be boring at first, but that's kind of the point of the quote, as you keep watching it gives way to some other kind of meditative experience. Evidently not for you though :p

I actually don't think that Schrader would agree. All of the filmmakers about whom Schrader wrote in conceptualizing a style of film to be referred to as transcendental were focused on narrative. Tarkovsky isn't. In his introduction to the new edition of Transcendental Style in Film, Schrader actually writes about Tarkovsky, and he writes: "Ozu, Bresson, Dreyer, Mizoguchi, De Sica, and the rest used film time to create an emotional or intellectual or spiritual effect. Tarkovsky used film techniques to study time. For Tarkovsky time was not a means to a goal. It was the goal."

<WellThere>

Furthermore, he writes that "film techniques are about 'getting there' - telling a story, explaining an action, evoking an emotion - whereas [what he called earlier "the Tarkovsky long shot"] is about 'being there.'" And, most tellingly, he invokes the more recent conception of "slow cinema" to indicate Tarkovsky's distance from transcendental style: "Tarkovsky's work segued from delayed cut to dead time, from transcendental style to slow cinema."

In short, Tarkovsky's work has certain continuities with transcendental style, but its style is not actually transcendental. It's something else. And is, for that, IMO, something worse. It's actually a more pleasurable, even more exciting, viewing experience for me to watch something like Umberto D., or even Jeanne Dielman, precisely because they're narrative-focused and character-driven rather than pure abstractions with stories and characters propped up as excuses to jerk off with the camera.

Fair enough, I can't argue with the man himself (ps. need to get a copy of the new edition). Certainly if it's not quite Transcendental Style in that manner defined in the book, it is a film making style that, at the very least, attempts to be suggestive of transcendence.

And, despite what I just wrote implying that it's just Tarkovsky jerking off with the camera, I really did come around to it :D

Well that's good in any case <Moves>
 
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But then, based on his breakdown at the end, isn't his "measure of their worthiness" that they're unworthy, in which case, shouldn't they have not made it through the Zone?
Maybe. He seemed to change his mind about them as it went along, though. And then they turned out to be dirty non-believers in the end.

Then wouldn't that make the Room the Room of Suffering? Wouldn't that mean that, far from promising salvation/transcendence/what have you, the Room - and, indeed, the Zone itself - can promise nothing but suffering insofar as it's predicated on desire?

See: This is what happens when you make a film rooted in idiot philosophy :confused:

So what's worse: Fearing what you desire or desiring at all? And how is any of this to be reconciled by the Room/Zone?
I'm not a Buddhist or anything, but I don't think the idea of desire and suffering means you have to give up all earthly desires to be happy. It seems like it's more about humbly accepting what life gives you. Or something.

Speaking of films rooted in idiot philosophy:
I dunno, I like it because I'm super edgy. Anyway, this guy is in lockstep with the Stalker

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Really I would say by the end the character who seems wisest to the situation would be the Stalkers wife, at the end she has an air of confidence none of three men do and ultimately I think highlights that at a very basic level she chose the Stalker because for all his faults he's a decent loving person.
Well said. The Wife's monologue at the end highlights the message of accepting fate, and she is certainly the most qualified of all the characters. She doesn't even get to escape the dreary world to go frolic in Zone-mud from time to time.
 
What's the "it looks" about there in the first part and what's the "same as we saw in the first scene" about in the second part? Do you think there's a different source of vibration in the opening scene? Do you think Monkey was the one moving everything? Why? And of what significance would it be if she was? What's going on there with her?

You task me Bullitt.
th


The only way I can frame it to make sense is as follows. There is a progression of clues that lead to the final scene where the daughter moves the glasses with her mind. I have no idea if Tarkovsky intended it to be that way. We have to remember that directors are just people too and they make mistakes they don't intend to make.

1. Stalker tells the Professor, "Give up your empiricism Professor. Miracles are outside empiricism."

2. The Writer puts in his 2 cents by saying, "Remember how St. Peter was nearly drowned?" This is a reference to Matthew chapter 14. Jesus is in a boat with the disciples on the sea of Galilee when a storm arises. Jesus is sleeping in the bottom of the boat and the disciples become frightened that the boat is going to sink and they are all going to die so they wake Jesus up and tell him if you really are the son of God then calm this storm. This is the story when Jesus walks on water. Jesus tells Peter if he has faith, if he believes then he can walk on water as well and Peter does but when he gets close to Jesus out on the water he faith waivers and he begins to sink.

3. Porcupine hangs himself after realizing that only ones innermost wishes come true in the Zone meaning his was for money, not his brother. The Writer tells Stalker, "Render unto Porcupine what is Porcupine's", a direct reference to Jesus saying render unto Caesar what is Caesar's. Mark 12:17, And Jesus answering said unto them, Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's. And they marvelled at him.

4. At the end Stalker laments that the Writer and the Professor believe in nothing. The Professor didn't believe in his science enough to go into the room and the Writer questioned the Stalker about who told him miracles happened in the room and why would he believe in such nonsense? Stalker even asks, "Who will I take to the Zone?" He believes that the world has lost its hope and faith. This idea also played out as Stalker tried to stop the Professor from detonating his mini-nuke and destroying the Zone.

The bonus thought here is that if the Zone was initially created by an atomic blast then what good is it to detonate another smaller nuke there like the Professor wanted to do? Just seems like more of the same. The bomb would only be effective if it was true and "the room" had miraculous properties. We don't know for sure but Stalker seems to convince the Professor that the world needs hope. So he doesn't detonate it.

5. In the final frame we see Stalker's daughter, "Monkey", moving glasses across the table with her mind, same as we saw in the first scene. Only not the same as the first scene as you have pointed out Bullitt. In the first scene there is a train passing by but in the final scene there is no train vibration present. This is just after Stalker has his mental breakdown because nobody has faith or hope anymore from #4 above. Remember, one must go to the Lord as a little child would, weak and pliant, faithful, hopeful. This is a standard part of church doctrine that is echo'ed by the prayer the Stalker recites when they are getting close to the Zone (See the quote below). Secondly remember Matthew 21:21, with enough faith one can move mountains.

Matthew 21:21 Jesus answered and said unto them, Verily I say unto you, If ye have faith, and doubt not, ye shall not only do this which is done to the fig tree, but also if ye shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; it shall be done.


Conclusion: There is an idea and progression of dialogue that moves the viewer toward the final scene with the moving glasses. Monkey still has the hope and faith that Stalker lament's the world has lost and her moving of the glasses is a direct reference to biblical scripture. Stalker's daughter is the hope that he feels is lost. I apologize for the length of this but I can't explain it clearly without including all the details that lead me to believe what I believe.

Stalker should have known that he should have been focused on his daughter. Its within his own prayer.

"Let everything that's been planned come true. Let them believe. And let them have a laugh at their passions. Because what they call passion actually is not some emotional energy but just the friction between their souls and the outside world. And most important, let them believe in themselves. Let them be helpless like children, because weakness is a great thing, and strength is nothing. When a man is just born he is weak and flexible, when he dies, he is hard and insensitive. When a tree is growing its tender and pliant, but when its dry and hard it dies. Hardness and strength are death's companions. Pliancy and weakness are expressions of freshness of being. Because what has hardened will never win."

Am I correct on these points as they relate to the final frame of the film? I have no idea what Tarkovsky really intended but the protagonist, Stalker, is a religious man or a spiritual man who believes in hope and faith and the dialogue of the film is filled with references to biblical scripture.
 
I wouldn't really hold with the idea Bullitt mentions of the shot driving the narrative rather than the other way around myself. You could say I spose that yes more individual actions we see happen in terms of character movement and events are there to drive the shot but the atmosphere created by the shot is there to drive a larger narrative.

Well said. The Wife's monologue at the end highlights the message of accepting fate, and she is certainly the most qualified of all the characters. She doesn't even get to escape the dreary world to go frolic in Zone-mud from time to time.

It does I think also highlight that really the film is not looking to enshrine the statements of its characters as only great and meaningful pronouncements. Theres I think very much the intension you ment to take them in relation to the characters themselves, writer as a rather arrogant self interested blowhard, the Stalker himself as initially having a rather simplistic cod mystic kind of view.
 
I’ve been waiting for inspiration to watch Stalker again for over half of my life and today I finally got it done. Thanks SMC! It was still a very good movie. I was pretty entranced by the journey and the Stalker lifestyle. I’ve been betting on MMA for 1,5 years now and most of the time it feels like throwing bolts in the Zone.

When Writer and Professor were talking I mostly turned off the subtitles or rewinded a bit, because they were a bit tiresome characters and Soviet movies often have tons of philosophic contend that get in the way of the aestethic experience. I agree that the movie could be a lot shorter.
 
When Writer and Professor were talking I mostly turned off the subtitles or rewinded a bit, because they were a bit tiresome characters and Soviet movies often have tons of philosophic contend that get in the way of the aestethic experience. I agree that the movie could be a lot shorter.

Yea but without the dialogue the film loses its meaning. Maybe I don't understand what you mean.
 
Quick question - Was this really a SciFi film? And if so, how? Which is why I was curious and excited, until old boy actually made it out of bed! And then hung out in a bar. And then walked a long time. And then rode a trolley a long time. And then crawled over some sand boobs. And then crawled into caves...etc

To me this was more post-nuclear annihilation ponderous, somewhat elegant, bleak....
When Stalker was dreaming while sleeping in the zone someone was reciting a poem in the backround/in his head. Was is Monkey with some telepathic communication? At least she was using her telekinetic powers in the final scene to move the glasses on the table after reading (the same?) poem.

Part of why I was disappointed is I wanted to see some good old fashioned late 70s Russian SciFi. Whatever that actually may be.
There was a bunch of scifi movies made in USSR in 70's and 80's like Humanoid Woman and Teens in the Universe:


 
Yea but without the dialogue the film loses its meaning. Maybe I don't understand what you mean.
Building your characters as archetypes with 5 minute monologues is not the only way to write a movie. :) For me the way the intellectual content is presented in Soviet movies is a bit of a turn-off. I’ve watched a lot of them and love them artistically, but there’s always some boring rants scattered here and there and I’ve grown weary of them. Stalker is very unique though and really well thought out movie leaps and bounds above most. All I’m saying is, that I would have liked it even more with a bit more economical script and with more left to ride with the imagery.
 
When Stalker was dreaming while sleeping in the zone someone was reciting a poem in the backround/in his head. Was is Monkey with some telepathic communication? At least she was using her telekinetic powers in the final scene to move the glasses on the table after reading (the same?) poem.

Ok, so I hunted this poem down and it appears to be by Fedor Tyutchev. Tarkovsky appears to have made some minor changes with the poem like in the last line instead of the word passion he uses the word desire, but the poem is almost word for word.
"I Love Your Dear Eyes..."

I love your dear eyes, my friend,
With their play so bright and wondrous,
When you promptly rise them, and,
Like with a lightning in the wildness,
Embrace at once the whole land.

But there's more fabulous attraction:
The eyes directed to the floor
During the crazy osculation,
And through the lashes, set before,
The dusk and gloomy flame of passion.

http://www.poetryloverspage.com/yevgeny/tyutchev/i_love_your_dear_eyes.html
 
I wonder if the Stalker ever entered the Room himself and his daughter was the result? Or, would he ever enter the Room to try and save his daughter's legs? Is he afraid his deepest desire would betray her? So many unanswered questions based on that last scene, I can kind of see why it pisses @Bullitt68 off.

Stalker tells the Writer and the Professor that Stalker's never enter the room but we know that isn't always true because The Teacher A.K.A. Porcupine, went in the room and became wealthy but then hanged himself because his innermost desire was for wealth, not to save his brother who had died in the Zone. We also know that the Professor and the Writer had a conversation that Stalker's daughter was a "victim of the Zone" and had no legs.

I guess we can only draw from this a couple things.

1. Stalker might have gone in the room and his offspring was somehow effected.

2. Some sort of weapon or radiation caused a birth defect in Stalker's daughter.

3. Stalker's daughter has a problem with her legs but it is not related to the room, or radiation, or her father in any way and its just people's imaginations, rumor basically.

#2 and #3 seem unlikely to me because she moves shit with her mind. There is something going on with her more than just rumor and conjecture. So much so that the opening and closing scenes of the film are of moving glasses.

#1 is never revealed. Stalker never admits to going into the room.

This brings up a possibility #4. Stalker and his wife were at "ground zero", whatever that means, not necessarily nuclear, and the "event" caused their offspring to be a mutant. In other words, their house was in the neighborhood of "the room" when the event happened. I don't think we can ever know unless Tarkovsky reveals it in an interview somewhere.
 
A lot of it would seem really a debate about "inner most desire" and what that might be, Writer basically takes the view that its actually most likely to relate to the darker more selfish parts of the id overriding the more moral personality overlaying them and his guesses about Porcupine do seem likely to be correct.

There's that cynicism that I mentioned in the Persona thread ;)

Really I would say by the end the character who seems wisest to the situation would be the Stalkers wife, at the end she has an air of confidence none of three men do and ultimately I think highlights that at a very basic level she chose the Stalker because for all his faults he's a decent loving person.

Like I said: "Come back to reality." Hell, she's like the good Mal :D

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I am not sure, it's only MA level (though I was told my BA one might be suitable for certain niche history journals with some editing). But I suppose if I do decide to go down the PHD route it would be worth trying to publish some version of them. Of course, it also depends if it's actually any good or not. Still have to wait until I get my feedback lol.

Even if you don't go the PhD route, what's the downside to getting something published? And, if you do go the PhD route, nothing impresses professors and at the same time pisses off your fellow postgrads like getting shit published.

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I do have an academia account though, so I have uploaded it if you are curious (of course I have now noticed a few typos :mad:)

https://www.academia.edu/37432519/T...glish_Identity_in_Seventeenth_Century_Ireland

Cool. Well, when you look at your Analytics and see views coming from Chicago via Sherdog, you'll know it's Bullitt68 :D


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I suppose not, whatever the mysterious origins of the Zone, it's the impact on the characters which is more important.

Shit like that always bugs me. You know, Jan Harlan had a funny comment in some Kubrick documentary. He said that the main reason Kubrick never wanted to explain his movies was because to him they seemed so obvious. Nolan seems to take a similar position. It's one thing to make an ambiguous movie where you know everything there is to know and know that the dots are there to be connected; it's another thing to make an ambiguous movie where you care even less about connecting the dots than your viewers. The latter is a bullshit way to make a movie IMO.

I do agree with that tbf, it is certainly not natural the way in which people speak in Tarkovsky films, nor is masterfully and deftly woven into some a tightly-plotted coherent narrative. But Tarkovsky isn't intending to depict things naturalistically, so I guess I just see it as less important that it should be organic.

Did he not intend to depict things naturally or could he just not be bothered to care whether things seemed natural or not?

Don't get me wrong it can be boring at first, but that's kind of the point of the quote, as you keep watching it gives way to some other kind of meditative experience. Evidently not for you though :p

Again, I go to Kubrick. Watching the plane refueling at the beginning of Dr. Strangelove or the spaceship docking in 2001 - or, to go beyond Kubrick, watching the maid go through her morning routine in Umberto D. or hanging out in the prison cell in A Man Escaped - that shit gets my mind going. Not everything has to contribute to some relentless forward propulsion through the narrative. But it has to at least be narrative- or character-focused. Cutting to the backs of Stalker's, Writer's, and Professor's heads while they're trolleying through the Zone in Stalker, or following Berton on his pointless car ride in Solaris, that's just digressive, self-indulgent bullshit.

I'm not a Buddhist or anything, but I don't think the idea of desire and suffering means you have to give up all earthly desires to be happy. It seems like it's more about humbly accepting what life gives you. Or something.

Please tell me you did this on purpose.



I dunno, I like it because I'm super edgy. Anyway, this guy is in lockstep with the Stalker

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But you know that that's idiot philosophy, right? You're free to do whatever you want whenever you want. That's part of the deal with free will: It's free. You don't have to lose everything to move to a different state/country or to quit your old job and start a new job. It's not conditional will, it's free will.

That's idiot philosophy talk that idiots puke up to delude themselves and anyone stupid enough to listen that they're deep.

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You task me Bullitt.
th

Oh, believe me: I task everyone.



The only way I can frame it to make sense is as follows. There is a progression of clues that lead to the final scene where the daughter moves the glasses with her mind. I have no idea if Tarkovsky intended it to be that way. We have to remember that directors are just people too and they make mistakes they don't intend to make.

Fuck that. Here's one of my favorite quotes from the eminently quotable Stanley Cavell, from his 1967 essay "A Matter of Meaning It," one of my favorite pieces on artistic intention:

"In morality, tracing an intention limits a man’s responsibility; in art, it dilates it completely. The artist is responsible for everything that happens in his work – and not just in the sense that it is done, but in the sense that it is meant. It is a terrible responsibility; very few [artists] have the gift and the patience and the singleness to shoulder it."

As I've been saying: Tarkovsky had neither a gift for nor the patience for narrative. The result: Boring, haphazardly constructed, and often incoherent stories.

Stalker tells the Professor, "Give up your empiricism Professor. Miracles are outside empiricism."

I'm pretty sure Writer says that to Professor, not Stalker. It sounds like one of those condescending barbs characteristic of Writer. But I can't be bothered to search through Stalker to confirm that. In the event that I'm right, does that mess things up here?

2. The Writer puts in his 2 cents by saying, "Remember how St. Peter was nearly drowned?" This is a reference to Matthew chapter 14. Jesus is in a boat with the disciples on the sea of Galilee when a storm arises. Jesus is sleeping in the bottom of the boat and the disciples become frightened that the boat is going to sink and they are all going to die so they wake Jesus up and tell him if you really are the son of God then calm this storm. This is the story when Jesus walks on water. Jesus tells Peter if he has faith, if he believes then he can walk on water as well and Peter does but when he gets close to Jesus out on the water he faith waivers and he begins to sink.

3. Porcupine hangs himself after realizing that only ones innermost wishes come true in the Zone meaning his was for money, not his brother. The Writer tells Stalker, "Render unto Porcupine what is Porcupine's", a direct reference to Jesus saying render unto Caesar what is Caesar's. Mark 12:17, And Jesus answering said unto them, Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's. And they marvelled at him.

These are relevant bits to those particular moments in the film, but what's the "larger" significance?

The bonus thought here is that if the Zone was initially created by an atomic blast then what good is it to detonate another smaller nuke there like the Professor wanted to do? Just seems like more of the same. The bomb would only be effective if it was true and "the room" had miraculous properties. We don't know for sure but Stalker seems to convince the Professor that the world needs hope. So he doesn't detonate it.

It actually makes more sense to bomb out something created by a bomb in the first place ("the spear that smote you" and all that) than to try to bomb something magical. Forget about bringing a knife to a gunfight. What good will a bomb do in a magic fight?

Conclusion: There is an idea and progression of dialogue that moves the viewer toward the final scene with the moving glasses. Monkey still has the hope and faith that Stalker lament's the world has lost and her moving of the glasses is a direct reference to biblical scripture. Stalker's daughter is the hope that he feels is lost. I apologize for the length of this but I can't explain it clearly without including all the details that lead me to believe what I believe.

I guess my problem is that I don't get the sense of progression. Progression presupposes intent and I don't think Tarkovsky had either the patience or the skill to spin the tale you're unraveling for me here. It could've worked this way; what you're unraveling here would've made for a cool narrative. But there are just too many questions for me to buy this. First and foremost, as I keep harping on, Tarkovsky's refusal to explain the origin of the Zone - indeed, to explain anything about anything - precludes such neat interpretations as yours. If Monkey's just a genetically-altered offspring resultant from Stalker being contaminated by nuclear fallout or meltdown or what have you, then religion, faith, miracles, none of that shit has anything to do with anything. If, on the other hand, Monkey is a "normal" child who just happens to have the faith of a child that is powerful enough to move mountains or glasses - the power of which is technically free to all if they'd only believe - then what's the deal with the mysterious Zone/Room? What's up with the voices and the magically ringing phones and the bizarre perceptual/spatial twists? Why go the mystery route at all? And why not build to an intelligible climax/finale?

I have no idea what Tarkovsky really intended

Neither do I. Neither does anyone. Nor can anyone. And that really grinds my gears.

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