Tarkovsky is a genius. The original novel for Stalker is a must read (esp. if you can read Russian). But I cannot watch some of his movies after I learned that he _cruelly_ killed a horse in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrei_Rublev_(film)#Depiction.... I cannot justify this for the sake of art.
I certainly can, though I have some ambivalence. If you’re referring to the statement that the horse was eventually sent to a slaughterhouse, it doesn’t address the central ethical question of purposely torturing a horse to get a good shot.