Stalker (1979)
The Gist:
Stalker is the second film I've seen by Andrei Tarkovsky, and is perhaps even more ambitious and subtle than the darkly fascinating Solaris. Here we have a man, known as a "stalker," who leads the abject and meek into a place known as "the zone". The zone is an area cordoned off by the Russian military forces, a mysterious place where a supposed asteroid fell, and then there's some mystical shit about how there's a room that can grant anyone's inner most desire, things like that. It has an odd science fiction/fantasy slant, but it's like Tarkovsky exploits this instead of falls to the trappings of convention (although that would have made a great film too). Instead, what we have is an interesting premise that gives way to beautifully colorful Terrence Malik-esque cinematography of the zone (contrasting the subtle Lynchian-esque drab browns of the world outside of the zone), that gives way to the stalker preaching strange poetic verses, about the miserable men in tow pontificating on the nature of the zone and the room and the path of men. It's fucking awesome, and Jesus is it beautiful. Two hours and thirty five minutes that could almost be described as a visual poem.
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