Stalker

This is often noted as Tarkovsky’s miracle, ultimately leading to his fate and mortality. It is to my worthless opinion, a voluble unreserved retrospective to science fiction; As it completely atones to all of the footage for the original film lost in the wasteland. The film that most people are familiar with when they hear his name, also fundamentally being Andrei Tarkovsky’s most challengful project, physically and spiritually- is an unabashed silent prayer that remained an unforgiving toll to himself. Reshooting the entire film from scratch— he put his entire set at risk. They all went through with the project, eventually it did kill all of them, but at the cost of art they became immortalized through its legacy. Being an essential for cinema, Stalker is yet another Tarkovsky masterpiece that’ll live for 100 more years. “But why not forever”— a phrase uttered by the writer later on as a fervent soliloquy. To sum what this movie to me was about, is that it is a tale shot to the edge of an anomaly of which is uncertain of civilization’s preparation. “Stalker” remembered for the ages as a dignified film, revered for nearly half a century, rewritten, reshot, re-perfected three times by Andrei Tarkovsky due to the weathering. Within this Tarkovsky creates a perfect philosophical question about the odds of pinning nihilism, humanism and our ideas of religion against one another. This film does everything by transcending the sci fi genre, with one of the most original/greatest scenes ever filmed, told by the writer on the edge of a well. The atmospheric scenes, and tension of this film’s characters gives enough proof of why the objective world is at odds with people’s belief in the divine. Yet, we will always wonder what the truth is, and we know God can be that truth, but is there hope that humanity will give a chance for that unconditional love? And, as the story commentates on nature and its beauty, the relationship to us and that zone, should in it of itself be enough proof to those around the characters. As time has held up Stalker, is still an absolute cinematic masterpiece, and within it, we listen to cosmic hums from the score alone, and within the dialogue, human prayers with that deep desire for the youth to become like him who can become one with divine creation, almost as in reconciliation to what we once lost through our sin. The message of the story (to me) is ultimately universal, is that the meaning behind the words can be lost, but what remains eternal has yet to be seen.