Good Movie--Tarkovsky's "Stalker"

new restoration, full film (with english subs) up on the tube:
One of the most immersive and rarefied experiences in the history of cinema, Andrei Tarkovsky's STALKER embarks on a metaphysical journey through an enigmatic post-apocalyptic landscape. A hired guide - the "Stalker" of the title - leads a writer and a scientist into the heart of the Zone, the restricted site of a long-ago disaster, where the three men eventually zero in on the Room, a place rumored to fulfill one's most deeply held desires. Adapting a science-fiction novel by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, and making what would be his final Soviet feature, Tarkovsky created a challenging and visually stunning work, his painstaking attention to material detail and sense of organic atmosphere further enriched by this vivid new restoration. At once a religious allegory, a reflection of contemporary political anxieties, and a meditation on film itself-among many other interpretations - Stalker envelops the viewer by opening up a multitude of possible meanings. Restored by Mosfilm from a 2k scan of the original negative.

All of the director's 7 feature works are deeply spiritual/metaphysical. Stalker is a bit difficult for me, but I love Andrei Rublev and Solaris.


The Spiritual Cinema of Andrei Tarkovsky

Faith is an affirmation of the miraculous – that which is ‘invisible’ and ‘everywhere’ at any point in time provided you make the choice to see what is plain to the eye of the spirit. (...)

In the cinema of Tarkovsky, the spirit is removed of all abstractions and revealed in its concrete forms. Mircea Eliade points out in The Sacred and the Profane that “The sacred always manifests itself as a reality of a wholly different order from “natural” realities.” [8] The concreteness of the sacred is not in the realm of ideas or the manner in which Hegel talks about the spirit in Phenomenology of Spirit: “The spiritual alone is the actual; it is essence, or that which has being in itself; it is that which relates itself to itself and is determinate, it is other-being and being-for-self, and in this determinateness, or in its self-externality, abides within itself; in other words, it is in and for itself?” [9] Tarkovsky’s understanding of the spirit is closer to Eliade than to Hegel: “The sacred tree, the sacred stone are not adored as stone or tree; they are worshipped precisely because they are hierophies, because they show some thing that is no longer stone or tree but the sacred, the ganz andere.” [10] (...)

With corporate-based mass technologies dedicated to the project of obliterating any trace of individuality, and discussions on religion reduced to ritual, politics and unreal collective goals, an overpopulated earth makes it harder to recognize the sanctity of the individual and his or her inner life. This is the context in which we must understand Tarkovsky’s work as a whole when he says: “I see it as my duty to stimulate reflection on what is essentially human and eternal in each individual soul.” [23] What is missing in the way religion is understood in the 21st century plagued by extremisms of those who have the power and those who do not is the spirituality that comes with personal commitment to make a better world. Tarkovsky’s movies continue to throw light on complex domains in a person’s inner life when you discover the “miracle” of life each and every day without which the future becomes as meaningless as the past. Such a spiritual life is not abstract and de-individualized but contrarily something that is felt – so deeply that it has a transformative impact on the world around you.



 
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full Solaris with subs
Science fiction as meditation on consciousness.

From Wiki:
The film is a meditative psychological drama occurring mostly aboard a space station orbiting the fictional planet Solaris. The scientific mission has stalled because the skeleton crew of three scientists have fallen into separate emotional crises. Psychologist Kris Kelvin travels to the Solaris space station to evaluate the situation only to encounter the same mysterious phenomena as the others.

The original science fiction novel is about the ultimate inadequacy of communication between humans and other species. Tarkovsky's adaptation is a "drama of grief and partial recovery" concentrated upon the thoughts and the consciences of the cosmonaut scientists studying Solaris' mysterious ocean.[citation needed] In loyalty to the novel's complex and slow-paced narrative, Tarkovsky wanted to bring a new emotional and intellectual depth to the genre, viewing most of western science fiction as shallow.[5] The ideas which Tarkovsky tried to express in this film are further developed in Stalker (1979).[6]

Good short analysis of the film:
 
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Tarkovsky's movies are good, but are not faithful to the books. Lem's Solaris was more focused on the science of Solaristics, when Kelvin was trying to figure out what was happening by studying Gibarian's notes and more intent on dispatching the psychical manifestation of his wife. Thus the book is more cerebral in character than the movie. Same thing in Stalker. The hero of Roadside Picnic is a tough, down to earth guy who tries to keep the scientists out of trouble from the Zone, all the while searching for a fabled wishing machine to cure his daughter. It's main theme is the discovery of extremely advanced discarded alien artifacts and the fumbling attempts of humans to make sense of them. The movie is focused more on the emotional turmoil of the main character.
 
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