If you see Lao Tuo thoroughly, it is impossible to be confused about this film, and even say that Laota's determination to try to tell his story clearly is quite strong.
1. What is the old tower going to say? Lack of Faith.
It is true that this story has a huge connotation, and each dialogue has a huge and solid amount of information, but as I said, Laota has a strong desire to "hope to be understood", so he not only integrates the symbols that should be integrated into the environment Meaningful things (such as water) are everywhere, so you can't ignore them at all, and you have to point the question through the protagonist's mouth (don't lie here, it's too wet), the emphasis is so deep that I feel that there is too much presence strong.
Therefore, for the reason he wanted to explain, at the end of the film, he simply said it directly through the protagonist's mouth: After the stalker completed this infiltration, he was suddenly "tired" and lay down on the spot, powerlessly as weak as a child ( Remind the viewer to note that "weak as a child" is one of the monologues in the film), with his eyes closed, he tried his best to complain about the two interviewers:
You can't imagine how tired I am when they call themselves intellectuals, writers! the scientist! They don't believe anything! Because of the long-term neglect, their ability to believe has been crippled and distorted... Their eyes are empty, they are always thinking about how to sell themselves at a good price, how to grab more, and every breath they spit out has to be In return, they know they were born to achieve, they stand out from the crowd, they say "you only have one life", how can someone like this believe in anything? .....not just the two of them, no one believes in now, no one, who else can I take there? Oh god, the scariest thing is that no one needs it anymore, no one needs that room, and all my efforts are in vain.
No matter what standard you use to say it, this sentence can't be considered obscure, can it? The stalker is complaining about the lack of human belief. It is what Nietzsche called "God is dead", and it is the "new style" that Dostoevsky mentioned many times in books such as "The Brothers Karamazov" and "The Idiot". Criminals": They have completely abandoned religious beliefs, so they have no moral bottom line in their hearts, and the development of capitalism continues to amplify human desires. The two factors combine to lead to a world comparable to the book of revelation: Lao Tuo quotes revelation among idiots recorded, just as the protagonist at rest in this film hears the voice of the book of Revelation being read.
Who is a stalker? A true believer, a devout pastor, a channel for people to seek their faith, and in a sense he represents Christ. In the big scene in front of the "room", the writer directly questioned the stalkers: the stalkers were preaching along the way (religious preaching); asking them to do something illogical (religious etiquette); asking them to go around Walking on the road, immersing in water, first entering the meat grinder (to make them suffer); but he himself does not enter the meat grinder (the ultimate question: if God exists, why did he create suffering? Why didn’t God himself come to the world to bear suffering for us , or simply to eliminate suffering at all?); Are stalkers just the kind of villains who take advantage of other people's desire for "rooms" to make money? (Does religion essentially make money from human suffering?) Further, the writer accuses the stalker of enjoying watching the suffering of despairing people, while he can "play god" and decide who lives and who dies.
These can be said to cover the fundamental questioning of religion in modern society, right? How did the stalker answer? He had tears in his eyes and was very aggrieved. In order to "bring people into the room" (to find faith), he was not tolerated by society, lacked material, and was sick himself, all of which he did. Sacrifice, the purpose of all this is to enable those desperate and miserable people to find faith and satisfy their deepest desires, and he believes that his meaning and dignity lies in guiding these people. In this sense, he has the intention of Christ.
Another interesting point that supports this fact is the Stalker's wife. Unlike the two losers, she is a "believer", but the object of her belief is love. In her description, she accepts all the pain and pleasure that love brings, and even says that it is precisely because of pain that there is pleasure. This purpose is completely consistent with the repeated intentions throughout the film: the pain represented by water, only by accepting and submissive like a child can we overcome the pain, and only when we overcome the pain can we find true relief.
Those who have seen Lao Tuo will realize that "soft and obedient like a child" and "overcoming pain" are his eternal themes. Lao Tuo's compassion for criminals also comes from his very complex religious emotions. Those who are rolling in evil are more likely to suffer double the psychological pain and have a better chance of attaining enlightenment.
At the end of the story, the tired and angry stalker said that he would never take anyone to the "room" again. The wife was comforting him, saying she could go with him, but was rejected, why? This is actually a very sad emotion. He said, "What if you also fail the test?" Who is the wife? She is a person with a certain consciousness, but her consciousness is expressed in love. As for her belief, it is still a mystery. Unknown, so the stalker is afraid that even the wife will be dissuaded by too much pain in the process of asking for faith - so I saw in the comments that the stalker finally stopped believing in the room, which is not right , his The belief has not changed, he no longer believes in the ability of human beings to believe , and his wife is the ray of hope in his heart, and he does not have the courage to try. I think this sentiment is also a good representation of the attitude of the old tower himself.
Old Tower's firmness in religious belief can also be seen in the little girl's mind superpower at the end of the film. The stalker and his wife appear from the beginning to the end as a "damaged" image, they live in a damp, cold and barren environment, constantly shaken by industrial society (trains) and full of pollution, their daughter is a crippled, these correspond to The sufferings suffered by the true faith, but it was this kind of suffering that gave birth to a girl who looked crippled but was actually superhuman. The close-up of this girl in the whole film is in color, and the color is specially given to faith by the old tower (zone) .
2. The "plasticité" and metaphor of the picture
Many people look at the time of engraving, and will literally think that the old tower rejects metaphors, but in fact, what he wants to express is a more complicated meaning: what he calls "symbolism" refers to an item A as a certain and what he calls a "figurative" is the incarnation of an object A as an indeterminate metaphysical concept B.
Therefore, it is obvious that Laota rejects the term "symbol" so much because the symbol has greatly reduced the level and three-dimensional degree of the object he wants to express. He is not satisfied with expressing a certain concept, but wants to pursue "uncertainty".
But "not sure" doesn't mean "all-encompassing, so to speak." This is a very difficult measurement problem for the general public to understand - many people, such as me, think modern art is a hoax before systematically studying modern art, and everyone says that they want to express a very uncertain concept (such as Gerhard Richter), can this "uncertainty" continue to be blurred to the point of no boundaries? So can anyone be an artist? It makes sense to say that it has an "uncertain metaphor" when you make a random thing, doesn't it? But obviously geniuses and masters are not born in the world. The choice of metaphors is based on principles, purposes and rules. Laota refuses to "determine" his content, which does not mean that what he wants to express is "what you see is what you see." ', it is bounded.
Of course, to a certain extent, "what you see is what you see" is also true, because most of the information obtained by most people through their own perception systems is basically within the intention of the old tower: like putting a prism in front of everyone , the uncertainty of the content it reflects makes it a collection of enormous capacity, even infinite, but not incapable of abstract classification. To use an analogy, a metaphor is like a set of irrational numbers, and a symbol is a number.
Therefore, in terms of metaphorical medium, the scenes and props shown in this work can be called works of art, which is the typical expression language of modern art.
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