[mellowdream]

Stalker is still the most beautiful film I've ever seen. I took a film class in college and fell asleep when we were watching it (embarrassing, but the professor was wholly understanding) - I watched it 3 or 4 times later the same week on my own. But it's also the film that's been hardest for me to understand. I "get it" the least of all, I'm still not sure what it's about - it's an otherworldly experience, though.

With Stalker I turn to Fellini - I don't like the idea of "understanding" a film. I don't believe that rational understanding is an essential element in the reception of any work of art. Either a film has something to say to you or it hasn't. If you are moved by it, you don't need to have it explained to you. If not, no explanation can make you moved by it. That's why I don't think my films are misunderstood when they are accepted for different reasons. Every person has his own fund of experiences and emotions which he brings to bear on every new experience-whether it is to his view of a film or to a love affair; and it is simply the combination of the film with the reality already existing in each person which creates the final impression of unity. As I was saying, this is the way the spectator participates in the process of creation. This diversity of reaction doesn't mean that the objective reality of the film has been misunderstood. Anyway, there is no objective reality in my films, any more than there is in life.

[H8crilA]

I think people are too used to the "American style" of moviemaking which focuses solely on goal driven characters in a rules driven world. While the characters in Stalker have some goals it's not all that important.

There is no "explanation" as in a series of rules of the universe and character internal goals that together drive the plot. Why would one think there has to be? "Film is a mosaic made up of time."

[DubiousPusher]

Andrei Rublev felt like a slog until the last segment with the bell making. That segment really built tension for me and at its end it became clear to me that the entire film had been a set up. It established the vanity of Rublev's religious experience and his realization of that through his sudden exposure to the chaos of the world outside the monastary.

But to make Rublev's epiphany clear -that he could live for compassion, passion and the kindred spirit of a fellow creator- you had to be taken through this long process of seeing this crazy world through Rublev's naive eyes.

It was definitely one of my first experiences where I discovered that sticking with art that is challenging or difficult could truly pay off in a way immediately gratifying art sometimes cannot.

[pradn]

The bell-maker sequence is one of my favorites in all of cinema.

You'll be delighted to read this story in the Mughal emperor Babur's autobiography discussing the casting of a cannon and the emotions the cannon-maker felt when failing and, later, succeeding in casting it. It's a remarkable similarity. (These are from the "events of the year 933" section of W.M. Thackston Jr.'s version of the Baburnama.)

https://imgur.com/a/kUlNM7m

[crispyambulance]

The cinematography of Andrei Rublev (and really all of Tarkovsky's films) feels almost magical.

I remember the first time I watched Andrei Rublev, it was in a university library, in one of those media carrols (on a laserDISC !). There's a scene in the middle of film depicting a pagan spring ritual where Rublev and the other monks were compelled to participate. Anyways, by the time that scene was over I turned around and noticed several other students standing behind me asking what the F was I watching, they were so mesmerized, they abandoned what they were watching and just started to watch Andrei Rublev.

One contemporary director in particular come to mind, that remind me at least in part of Tarkovsky. Apichatpong Weerasethakul, who directed "Uncle Bonmee who can recall his past lives" and others (https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=_bJdvNS4iRw). Like Tarkovsky films, this film and his others meander in plotless dreamy arcs with sumptuous camera work. Weerasethakul has even stated that he's OK with people falling asleep while watching his films.

[DubiousPusher]

I've been thinking about watching that for a while. Unfortunately finding the time for these kind of films with a family around is much harder.

[celticmusic]

I've never seen this movie, nor am I a movie buff of any sort, but this was the experience I had watching Mr Hollands Opus.

The entire movie you're left wondering what the hell the plot is. What is the point of this movie. And then the ending happens and you realize the entire movie was crafted for the ending, and it wouldn't have had much impact without the journey before it.

[nrp]

It’s worth reading the source material “Roadside Picnic” if you haven’t yet. It’s very different from the film in a way that I think lets you appreciate what Tarkovsky did with it even more.

Roadside Picnic is also the incredibly rare example of the book, the movie (Stalker), and the video game (S.T.A.L.K.E.R.) each being able to stand on their own merits. This is probably in part because they are so different thematically.

[omnimus]

As far as i know Tarkovsky wasnt really scifi fan. Maybe thats why Stalker is so unlike the book.

He made Solaris as answer to Kubrics Space Oddesay and after that he got big budget for another scifi.

Sadly the Stalker was disaster. Very unsafe poisonous conditions where many got sick. Movie almost didnt happen. Its suspected Stalker is reason why Tarkovsky died early.

[trhway]

>It’s worth reading the source material “Roadside Picnic” if you haven’t yet. It’s very different from the film

add to that the original movie script by the Strugatski brothers which stands on its own and is different from the book as well as from the movie.

[clSTophEjUdRanu]

I'm down that rabbit hole right now. The HBO series Chernobyl made me start up S.T.A.L.K.E.R. that's been sitting in my steam library for years. That game made me check out the film Stalker just last week and that made me pick up Roadside Picnic just the other day.

[_hardwaregeek]

I totally agree. I find it very frustrating when upon watching a film, people attempt to place it into a box. A film does not have to be "about" a particular thing. It does not need a singular interpretation. One can watch a film and simply celebrate the interstitial, the ambiguous, the perplexing.

[thesz]

>If you are moved by it, you don't need to have it explained to you. If not, no explanation can make you moved by it.

And I think it is totally wrong.

If you are moved by something, you better explain to yourself why it is so. You lose a part of perception by not doing that. Rational mind is one of the ways we perceive world around us.

And you can be moved by an art if it has been explained to you. It happened to me many times in the past and is also wonderful experience. As if some gates are opened and I can feel more.

[jamesrcole]

> I don't like the idea of "understanding" a film. I don't believe that rational understanding is an essential element in the reception of any work of art.

I think it depends on the work. Take the tv show The Wire. There is a lot to understand and learn from it. I found doing so really worthwhile (for multiple reasons).

[atoav]

Understanding can add a great layer to the experience of a movie (as you rightly demonstrated), however for many it seems to be a necessity to even consider finding it good. There is a whole class of people whi can't enjoy a film unless it is served with a 100% clear and unambigous explaination.

To me they feel a bit like people who watch a beautiful sunset and get mad that it is not beeing self explainatory. They cannot just see things, they have to understand in order to get satisfaction.

The good old "what wanted the artist tell us" is bullshit. I went to art school and graduated with a MA. The really interesting stuff often happens where the artists themselves cannot tell you what made them do it a certain way. Sometimes the work is more intelligent than the artist and you realize they have no clue what they did when they did it. Tarovsky however certainly knew what he did, but the whole point was precisely that which is hard to grasp.

[wruza]

Oh, you touched a thing that bugs me sometimes. Some of people are so definitive, as in they need instant direct “tell me then” answers (which must fit their current level of understanding) and not explorative questions. I find being in a superposition and waiting for things to [not] happen much more insightful and learn-able than requesting explanations right here right now, as it doesn’t fixate your thinking. I don’t want to bait a flame here, but I came to a conclusion that widespread religion is a consequence of this. People are uncomfortable when things are unexplained and when thought experiments bring more and more hard questions to the table. God may exist or not, and that’s an interesting question, but for them it is not the question, but just a way to clear the table once and forever. (It’s not about all religious people, and I have enough counterexamples, but few of my close links fell to goddidit pit under heavy indoctrination pressure.)

[Ialdaboth]

I believe the "understanding" bit goes hand-in-hand with the fetishization of nerdy intellect by the modern upper-class (especially in the managerial and IT urban elite). Whereas one recurring theme of classical art had to do with the sacred, and the experience of the sacred - something you can feel, but not something you can understand.

[celticmusic]

I still remember the day I got lectured by someone on how I didn't really understand the anime Neon Genesis Evangelion. Maybe not, but it spoke to me in a way no other anime ever did and it's easily the #1 for me.

I obviously understood SOMETHING about it, even if it was just my own understanding.

[celticmusic]

The Wire felt like real people, in a way that 99.9% of media doesn't.

I've read that some/most of the actors were actual police force at some point. I may be getting the details wrong, but I think that's why it felt so real, because it was real even if the specific situations were fiction.

[alasdair_]

> If you are moved by it, you don't need to have it explained to you. If not, no explanation can make you moved by it.

I respectfully disagree. Watching Schindler’s List as an eleven year-old barely had an effect on me. After it was explained to me I found it tremendously heartbreaking.

[atoav]

You are right in the idea that context (down to the title of a film) matters. However I think they meant something else there. I make films myself and context matters for everyone. But there is a class of people who cannot enjoy a film if they don't get it. If there isn't a clear didactic lesson to be learned in the end or a unifying functional theory that explains all of the films elements they are unable to enjoy the thing.

Which is weird, because the same people usually enjoy watching a sunset without explaination, have no problems liking a Van Gogh without knowing why precisely he painted crows over the field and let's not even talk about music.

Some people see it as an insult if your film isn't 100% self explainatory or at doesn't at least pretend it by smuggling the more ambigous ideas in the guise of something else (like good hollywood films).

For people that watch films in that way, the whole enjoyment of a film is connected to the feeling of having it deciphered. However — this way they are missing a big part of what is possible with the medium. Like if you'd only listen to music you can rationally explain the existence of each note for. Some things have no valid explaination, they just are. Stalker is one of these. Like the crows on Van Goghs field, you don't really need to have them explained to you to have them touch your soul. Not every soul will be touched by the same thing — but let's at least try.

[alasdair_]

Great response - thank you!

[mikorym]

I think that a lot of the "understanding" part of these kind of films are quirks to do with constraints that the filmmakers had. I would contrast this with Annihilation, which was confusing because it's not properly thought out IMO and with Inception, which was not confusing but did sacrifice artistic expression for mainstream appeal (for example the scenes with a lot of gun fighting).

The immediate things about Stalker that bothered me are, in retrospect, solvable with a higher budget or better film support. Of course, some people prefer the authentic aura of such films. Bellflower would be another example of a good idea and story done on a budget of next to nothing.

[krrrh]

> I think that a lot of the "understanding" part of these kind of films are quirks to do with constraints that the filmmakers had.

This reminded me of one of my favourite (possibly apocryphal) tidbits about Solaris. People have differing theories about the significance of the very long highway scene, and Tarkovsky had an elaborate explanation for it when the film came out. [1] [2]

At some point he admitted that he and his camera operator mostly really wanted to visit Japan, so he included a suitably long scene to justify visas and a travel budget. I don’t recall where I read that, but it helped me to be comfortable taking my own meaning from a work of art and not worrying too much about discovering the author’s absolute intent.

[1] https://www.quora.com/In-Tarkovsky-s-film-Solaris-what-is-th...

[2] https://viz.dwrl.utexas.edu/old/content/real-world-metropoli...

[mikorym]

I still need to watch the original Solaris!

It's funny how random things like that can obfuscate your impressions in so many things in life. I feel like this about a lot of computer science and mathematics: If you are not the author of a text, then your focus is easily distracted by peculiarities that have little to do with the core message.

I guess this would partly also be why a lot of high school students struggle with calculus. By the way, on that topic, if you consider dx and dy to be variables, then calculus's strange notation is easier to try to make sense of.

[ptsneves]

I liked much more anihalation than inception in retrospective. There are many more questions in anihalation than in inception,where it can boil down to "is this real? ". Anihalation goes into how do I want to be part of the world, do I care if I live, or how important is that "me" is really "me". These stuff allows for very good existential questioning in the good way.

[damontal]

I feel that way about Synecdoche, New York - it's funny, gross, and horrifying and there's some deep truth there. I watched 3 times in a row at first. Every time I see it it puts me into a blue funk for a week.

[dharma1]

Beyond the beautiful cinematography and sound design, the thing that blew me away when I saw it (on a big screen, I think I also dozed off for a few minutes) was how he stretches time almost to a hypnotic effect.

The scene when they are on the train tracks, slowly morphing from black and white into colour - so slowly that it takes a while for you to figure out what's going on, while being lulled into almost a trance like state. I did not realise film could elicit such experiences prior to seeing Stalker. It's beautiful

[cordaciu]

>Stalker is still the most beautiful film I've ever seen

It's my favorite movie of all time

[wnscooke]

What films are you talking about?