Watching Tarkovsky’s ‘Stalker’ Again

From the outside world...

The surreal sci fi masterpiece, 'Stalker', directed by Andrei Tarkovsky, tells a jarring, dislocated story of a mysterious zone, inside which the normal laws of nature no longer apply. Guarded by a military force, the zone is occasionally penetrated by renegade guides, or 'stalkers', who will bring adventurers with them for a price. 

The 1979 film is loosely based on a Russian sci fi short story, 'Roadside Picnic', which describes superior alien beings who halt briefly on Earth, en route to somewhere or something else. The trash or detritus from their brief roadside picnic, is utterly mesmerizing to earthlings, and causes strange zones on the planet, inside which the alien discardings upend the laws of physics. 

...to inside the Zone...

In the movie, the transition from the polluted and wretched sepia-tinted world to the zone, manifests as full, saturated color. But despite its apparent natural beauty, the zone has an unsettling Garden of Eden quality, in which not much happens but the three characters seem to be stricken with extreme paranoia. The Stalker insists that the shortest and safest route through the zone is always a circuitous, backtracking maze. His comrades quickly find their minds riven with suspicion and misunderstanding. 

I'm probably a Philistine, but I almost wanted there to be more action in this slowly-unfolding story, ...and for once a remake might be a compelling project.... 

"Was it a meteorite or a visitation from outer space?

Whatever it was, in our small country, there appeared a miracle — the Zone.

We sent in troops. Not one returned.

Then we surrounded the Zone with a security cordon.

We did right... Although I'm not sure. I'm not sure."