Andrei Kurosawa

‘Stalker’ 1979 by Andrei Tarkovsky is possibly the most philosophical and complex film to ever exist, on top of that it’s one of the most influential sci-fi films. At its core Tarkovsky’s masterpiece is about human consciousness and human nature. The film is about three men exploring a mysterious area called the ‘zone’. Their names are the Stalker, The Professor and The Writer. The three men exploring the zone each represent humanities reaction to the unknown. First off the Professor represents humanities nature to try and understand and control the unknown and humanities nature to try and give the unknown a scientific basis, however when we can’t control it we attempt the destroy it. The writer represents humanities nature to write about the unknown and to document it and to give it an artistic meaning. The Stalker represents humanities nature to protect the unknown and tell people about it and humanities nature to preserve it. The dirty industrial hellscape outside of the ‘zone’ is meant to represent real life and the ‘zone’ is meant to represent human consciousness and thought. Outside of the ‘zone’ the world is an industrial hellscape and Tarkovsky uses depressing colours to show the real world as depressing, boring and repetitive. The deeper you go into ‘zone’ there is apparently a room where human desires come true, I think this represents the human consciousness as the deeper you go into your thoughts you can become anything and do anything you want. Overall, ‘Stalker’ is one of the greatest films to ever exist and is a film that has an infinite amount of layers of meaning in it.