Watching Stalker was a contemplative experience. What was most remarkable for me is how Tarkovsky is able to keep the viewer fully engaged in a movie that moves very slow and is also long. Every scene is replete with atmospheric details that gets you immersed into the enigmatic world that you step into with the the Stalker, Writer and Professor. What you make of each scene, the telling of the story or the conclusion feels entirely upto the viewer. their biases and life experiences. Given when the film was made, it is easy to imagine a political message - one of protest or an expression of subversion.
Removing that layer, one might see a metaphysical perspective there about human beings being too afraid have their inner-most desires come true, the propensity to self-destruct instead of taking a chance on the unknown. The three characters who make it to the "zone" have curiosity in common but little else. It could stand for uneasy alliances we make in life to fulfill goals we share with those quite unlike us.
There is also the idea of taking a chance on the unknown and unknowable, believing that it could lead to resolution. The movie left me thinking about how every viewer could come to their own conclusion about the movie and they would all be right. It is a lot like reading a poem, loving and it and never knowing it you even came close to understanding what the poet had it mind when they wrote it - that simply does not diminish the experience.
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