In an interview about the film "Nostalgia", Gideon Buckman mentioned that Tarkovsky often used travel as a metaphor in the film, to which Tarkovsky replied: "There is only one kind of travel, that It’s about going inside us.” And then adding: “Wherever you go, you are constantly searching for where your soul is.” This aptly captures a theme that runs through almost all of Tarkovsky’s films: An ascetic search for one's inner world. Here, travel is only a form, or even a symbolic form. Since the end point is within ourselves, the specific spatial displacement is not necessary. Therefore, in his films, the protagonists travel more in time, and then Gradually show the audience their inner world, which we can easily find in "Mirror" and "Andrei Rublev", "Sacrifice" and other films, and it is in line with his "carving time" film view . And "Stalker" seems to be the most straightforward and figurative practice of his concept. The film is about a journey that is both visible and spiritual. At the same time, he uses a lot of long shots to objectively record the appearance of time. .
Stalker is arguably one of Tarkovsky's most "easy-to-understand" films. The story takes place in one day, starting with the stalker getting up from the bed to wash, and ending with him returning home and laying on the bed, and what he did was to lead two people who were dissatisfied with the current state of life into the "restricted area" to find someone who could help. The "room" where wishes come true. Although the director prepared a lot of breath-taking plots for us before this trip: strange and solemn music, the origin of the "forbidden area", the crying of the stalker's wife, the "last words" left to the barman before leaving, The large number of guards patrolling the "exclusion zone", the story of the porcupine, the close-up of various wrecks, and the stalker's slightly crude warning to the two explorers all give us a sense of the hidden dangers of this trip. However, at the end, it was unexpected that the expedition had almost no twists and turns: the writer left halfway, but couldn’t help the itch of fear and returned in embarrassment; the professor did not listen to the advice and went back unscathed; some such as “meat grinder” "In this way, they all passed through the creepy area without any risk; the sudden operation of the telephone and the electric light did not cause any harm, and it can be said that they came to the door of the "room" smoothly. Compared to several other films, this film has no death, no memory (the story of the porcupine only exists in their language, so it is actually outside the picture), no illogical splicing, no time and space confusion... There's just obvious narrative logic, chattering arguments on the go, neat colors and a unified style... This is the movie, how cliché and boring it would be to just read the outline or listen to someone else's retelling. adventure story. But don't forget, this is Tarkovsky's film. For him, film is an art that is equal to all other art forms such as literature, painting, music, etc. Therefore, for his films we must and only can Interpret it through the way of watching the movie, and the viewing process of this movie is so disturbing. In the rhythm of the electric locomotive hitting the rails, together with the three protagonists, we walked into a journey of self-questioning and salvation. the fable.
The three people in the film can be said to represent three spiritual civilizations and three ways to reach the self, namely: art, science, and religion. Of course, it’s hard to say that these three are distinct, but in order to make it easier to see the problem, let’s do this type of analysis, and the character setting of the film itself also provides us with rationality. Occupation Name: A writer who has lost inspiration and doubts his beliefs, a professor who fantasizes about salvation with his colleagues, and a stalker who leads people into "forbidden areas" through hardships. These three people enter the "forbidden zone" with their own purpose and spiritual crisis, because at the core of the "forbidden zone" there is a "room" that can help people realize their wishes, which is their only hope. They are both people looking for answers and, in Stalker's words, "miserable."
We don’t need to explore what the “forbidden area” actually represents, but only in a general sense, the “forbidden area” is undoubtedly a place full of dangers and traps, dumped crosses, weapon wreckage, piled up bones, and broken walls. ...if, as some scholars have said, there are three types of earths in Tarkovsky's films: "The first level is the original earth; the second level is the opposite, the post-disaster earth; the last level is the 'transformed earth'. Nature', that is, the earth after being transformed by human hands.", then the "forbidden area" here seems to be more in line with the earth at the second level, that is, the earth after the disaster. In short, this place is gloomy and bleak, unpredictable but very seductive, and seems ready to devour everything anytime, anywhere, but such a place has the greatest reward, and it is the duty of the stalker to lead the miserable people in this realm to find Obtaining a "room" for happiness, at the cost of imprisonment and a curse (sick daughter), is the Stalker's "belief," or, as Tarkovsky himself put it, "with Beliefs and Beliefs”. Therefore, the stalker is undoubtedly the one closest to religion. Judging from his behavior, in fact, when he leads people into the "restricted area", he has not proved whether the "room" can help people realize their wishes or not. His employer brings happiness because, according to himself, he must never enter the "room" himself (which is contrary to his beliefs), and those who do must be separated from him and never see each other again, so he cannot Convinced at least not convincing others of the authenticity of the "room," at the end of the film, he returns home again, collapses on the bed weary, accusing his wife of the writer's and professor's falsity and infidelity, and when his wife offers to let him in" restricted area", he decisively refused, saying in an almost desperate tone: "If it doesn't work for you", from this passage, we can even speculate that no one has ever actually entered the "room", as in the At the door of the "room", when the writer meaningfully asked the professor where the legend about the forbidden area, the room, and the porcupine came from, the professor looked at the stalker, which means that the stalker is the only insider, and it can even be said that the stalker " created", so when a reporter asked in the interview what the "stealth zone" represented, Tarkovsky replied: "The stealth zone doesn't exist. The stalker himself created his stealth zone. He The reason why this area is created is to bring some unfortunate people into it and instill some kind of hope in them. Similarly, the Desire Cabin is also created by the stalker, and it is also a challenge to the material world. This This challenge is built up in the stalker's consciousness, consistent with the act of faith."
There's nothing wrong with saying that the movie ends here, everything that needs to be said, and discussions that have to be done are over, but if so, then this is at best a thought-provoking fable. In fact, the climax of the film is not The three of them traveled in the "forbidden area", but the stalker returned home with unbearable pain, he ultimately failed to complete his mission, failed to convince his employers to believe in him, failed to lead the victim to happiness, At this time, his wife reassured him, served him back to his bed, and even offered to follow him into the restricted area. I think we will all remember the beginning of the film, how much his wife was against him being a stalker. If we contact his wife, we can Imagine being a stalker's wife, what kind of pain she suffered, day and night in fear, raising a sick daughter alone, waiting for the ending... But at this moment, facing her almost broken husband, she said: "If I'll go with you, would you?" Then came a documentary-style monologue, his wife facing the audience, lighting a cigarette, and slowly telling us their story: "You know, mother is against us, you Probably noticed, he doesn't belong here, neighbors laugh at him, he's a poor bum... I know all this, he's dead, forever a prisoner, a child (deformed)... But what can I? I'm sure we will Happiness. I know there will be a lot of pain, but the happiness of pain is better than living numbly." The camera stopped on her face, her face was full of pain, but her expression was indifferent. "When he said: 'Come with me' 'I said yes, never regretted it, never. We had a lot of pain, worry, embarrassment, but I never regretted or envied anyone. This is our destiny, this is who we are.' See here , we finally understand that the "forbidden area" can't save us, and the "room" can't give us happiness. In the end, what we can convert to is "love". We may have it like a stalker without knowing it, maybe like a wife, I give it all year round, painful but not regretful, so the young daughter reads this verse: "But I admire more, when your eyes are lowered / At the moment of kissing, under the fluttering eyelashes / revealed The melancholy flame of love..." The girl closed the book and lay on the table in contemplation. At this moment, the cup suddenly moved towards us along the table, and the sound of the rails suddenly sounded, which was the same as the sound she heard when she entered the "restricted area". Just like a paragraph, the film ends here, and it ends in a panic of the audience.
Regarding the crashing sound of the rails, the film's music producer, Eduard Artemyev, once wrote in an article, "For example, in "Stalker" there is a passage in which a track car is driving on the rails, Ender Lie said to me: 'I want this to have a feeling of going from the real world into the unreal world.' At first, I wrote a piece of music, and then I suddenly thought of using the percussion of the seam of the track. I made it with synthesizers. , it gradually disintegrated, and then an echo was generated, and the 'fantasy' space was derived through the echo. Later, I never did this again, you know, this is the pure and real sound of railroad tracks, and then led to the electronic sound, but it is very far away, It's very hazy." From here, we can also see the director's thoughts, "Forbidden area" is an illusory world. In fact, it is a difficult thing to describe Tarkovsky's film music. It would be better if it was a clear and existing classic music. The most troublesome thing is many sounds like "Stalker". The clips, like that, were specially designed for their own films. So even Artemyev said, "It's really hard to imagine making a music record for "Stalker". In my life experience, this is a stage of pure film music, and this kind of music cannot exist alone ." Tarkovsky prefers unpredictable natural sounds and mixed sounds in his films, and is more based on emotional logic than plot development, and such music often relies on the audience's own telepathy and perception. The cinematic experience, so the usual onomatopoeias that are figurative and solidified hardly play a role here, it is hard to imagine that someone would say that the sound of wind in Tarkovsky's films is "whoohoo" or that the sound of water is "woohoohoo". "of. "The exploration of Tarkovsky's world of sound leads the listener into a matrix full of contradictions and irregularities. If one tries to understand it through logical and rational thinking, one will only encounter frustration and difficulty. But if When the listener allows his individual consciousness to let go of the urge to control and gain a perceptual connection to the film itself, this inquiry becomes extremely rewarding." In this sense, Tarkovsky's film music fits The unguarded emotional shifts in our hearts that tempt us to follow his films instead of common sense. Just like the sound of the track car hitting the rails at the beginning of the movie, at the beginning of the trip, and at the end of the whole movie, this must be said to be the director's genius. Only then can we really understand why Tarkovsky said: "Everything is happening now, the 'restricted area' is around us", the important thing is not the first and last echo, but through the middle narrative, we already know that the trolley is driving to the "restricted zone", then, it
So again we fall into the trap of Tarkovsky, who has said more than once that his films are a call to evoke similar emotions, so in the restricted area we are nervous, afraid Unknown danger, and we have to penetrate the depths of people's hearts. At the same time, we are eager to move forward, find "rooms" and gain ourselves. And after this experience, after leaving the restricted area, we realized that there is no room at all, or that a "room" can't give us anything, it can only give us "ourselves". At this point, we understand that art, science, and religion may not be the best way to save the world. What really allows us to achieve inner peace and happiness (although sometimes painful happiness) is "love" and kissing. "Under the fluttering eyelashes, the gloomy flame of love is revealed".
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