Hey everyone, just a reminder that you can watch Stalker for FREE on TH-cam courtesy of Mosfilm. If you haven't watched it, definitely give it a shot, it's one of my favorite movies of all time: th-cam.com/video/Q3hBLv-HLEc/w-d-xo.htmlsi=f2GcZ5yZjX_osVDq
I would like to add, this version seems to be higher quality than the HBO Max release of the Criteron version of the film When directly compared the audio in the YT version you linked is much better, and the subtitles are better too (visually at least)
It is a gripping film...and so is the novel it is based on: Roadside Picnic. Similar to Solaris in that it Fucks with Your Mind. The Subconscious mind. The characters are being driven by an underling motive that they themselves can't control.
@@embellished-videos I really enjoyed your analysis of Stalker, I think you're pretty bang on with a lot of things. I wish they'd release a reworked version with English instead of Russian.
I really believe the dog is a manifestation of the zone itself into a physical form, a neutral observer. It knows the stalkers desire, to be with the zone because it brings him joy. The zone just goes ahead and grants the desire regardless of being a room or not, and the dog goes home with the stalker so stalker can be with the zone and the zone will be with the stalker. This also helps explain why monkey demonstrates her abilities at the end of the film, due to the zone being close to her and already having connection with her and her father.
I can agree with that. If, on one hand, nothing had happened during their trip to the zone, on the other, every character got back to a non-sepia home and with a dog. It's the sign that "nothing" happened to them.
Yeah I wanted to focus on the zone mostly. But, I honestly feel like talking too much about her would give away some details that I prefer viewers to guess themselves. Basically, I tried not to spoil the whole movie
@@embellished-videos im not sure how you look at it, but i always saw the scenes in colour as places of Hope. The Zone and scenes with Monkey are in colour. The Zone gives hope and the girl is hope because she can change the future / she is the future.
@@NameName-dx8lb I think it also specifically shows the connection between the Zone and Monkey, who presumably was crippled but also got her powers from her father's connection with the Zone.
@@embellished-videos I don't know if I would call Ivan's Childhood slow? It is definitely beautiful....but not slow. I really don't consider Solaris slow. Rublev and Mirror yes. Those fit your take.
Yeah that one is slow too. But, I much prefer that to 2001. Parts of the movie are really cool and it's got a certain vibe to it. There's another one that comes to my mind, Taxi Driver. I hated it first time I watched it, but really loved it on my next viewing. I guess you have to be in certain mental space to enjoy these movies.
I watched it a few days ago at 00:00-03:00 without even looking at the phone or away in general once lol. Stalker for me is a film that just captures me from start to finish, even in those 5 min long scenes wheres apparently "nothing" happening. Social media didnt destroy my attention span yet and im kinda proud of that. Thank you for your genius and Rest In Peace, Andrei Tcharkovsy
Great video, for me the dog was always the prescience of the director. at least that was the strange impulse in my mind in Tarkovskys work as his spirit manifests most there with his dogs.
One significant problem associated with Stalker which I haven't seen discussed much is that at least some viewers would have been familiar with the Strugatsky brother's book, Roadside Picnic, and its connection with the movie. As a result, such viewers might have drawn from the book where the movie tended to be different or even minimalistic, that is, viewers unconsciously integrating elements from the book into the movie; the basic nature of The Zone and the artifacts contained within it, and their special properties for example... e.g. In the book, the dangers are clearly laid out, where as in the movie, the potential power of the zone is not convincingly evidenced, though briefly with the glitch involving the bird, rain in The Room (?), and tangentially at the very end, when the Stalker's daughter displays psychokinetic abilities... In any case, I would think that anyone already familiar with the book would have a stronger tendency to assume The Zone to be genuinely magical and dangerous, which would tend to mask the intentions of the film director. One might even go so far as to say that Tarkovsky's film, with its religious undertones, uses the basic premise of the book, and certain elements from it, as vehicles for a very different story and even a different fundamental theme.
I’ve read the book after watching the movie. Gotta say, they are barely related. I feel like Tarkovsky started with true adaptation of the film(I mean there are some elements there), but abandoned that idea and went into completely different direction. The book is amazing too and it also explores interesting ideas, plus it’s short. So it’s a good read.
Persoanlly I see the Stalker movie as an unofficial sequel to the book, where Red got his sudden wish of a better world for everyone, just not the obvious way, rather than suddenly having an utopia, he came to believe he can make the world a better place by taking people to the Zone, so they may have the experience he had.
Well, I think that telekinesis is there to answer the question of whether the magic of zone is real or not. The kid in general can be interpreted in many ways. But I’d like to think that it gives us a definite answer that it was not made up. We see a clear unexplained miracle.
My theory is that the Stalker and his family have already gone inside the room before and had their deepest desire fulfilled. The deepest desire the Stalker had was faith and purpose, and that's why he became a Stalker. He said that he has never been inside the room but I think that in the process of fulfilling his desire his memory of being inside the room was erased, since if he had kept the knowledge of the realness of the room then his faith would no longer be faith but fact. His wife also fulfilled her deepest desire which is to have a "Bittersweet love" with the Stalker, to have a meaningful life despite suffering, which we see in her monolog at the end of the film. And the kid of course desired superpowers, telekinesis, and perhaps the only one who knows the realness of the room since he is a direct proof of divine power. And probably also the only character in the film that seems to possess the truth and thus is free from suffering, since in every shot we see him, he is emotionless, while all the other characters have emotional breakdowns throughout the film. Great video tho, maybe do The Mirror next, it is my favorite Tarkovsky film.
Telekinesis in the film is meant to show the central argument about faith. There seems to be a lot of allusions to the concept that technology and scientific advancement have eradicated our ability to just blindly believe in things for the sake of belief. The two instances of telekinesis occur during scenes where the nearby train shakes the building; leaving it up to the interpretation of the viewer to decide whether this seemingly magical act is real or if it’s perfectly explainable through logic and rational thinking. (The cups move because the train shakes them)
I think the telekinesis was a callback to how objects on their house start moving whenever a train passes. And you could definitely interpret that from the angle of technology and how it has impacted our belief systems, or how it has been used as a form of "magical" oppression, under which we are mere, unaware subjects to. I think it's about asking the viewer if it really is the train passing that made the glass move or Monkey's powers. Or maybe even Monkey's poetic musing that conjured that image of impossibility. Either way, you could say the answer is magic.
How accurate would it be: the movie is about living in the USSR which is the zone, the "room" represents religion/truth, and the character of the Stalker is a guide that wants to bring people to religion/truth. The director also plays the role of a meta-stalker who creates the movie in order to bring his audience to the truth of religion in the USSR? (I should stop here, but I will continue.) The scientist and the writer are intellectuals who don't believe in faith so they refuse to enter the room since it would destroy their world view. The stalker is a person of faith who has accepted his lot in life. Tarkovsky created the movie without any transcendence to a more beautiful existence because he felt that accepting your place and introspection are the best ways to cope with living in the USSR at the time.
Yeah, I'd say you're spot on. But, I also have to add that Tarkovsky never wanted his movies to be specifically about 1 thing. He wanted different people to feel and find different things in his movies.
@@embellished-videos Yes I totally agree with what you're saying The artist made it ambiguous enough so that everybody could come up with their own ideas
While there is some truth to it, that reading completely omits the fact that his obsession with the Zone is clearly an unhealthy one that's causing him to disrupt and abandon his family, for a truth he himself cannot even see. Of course, one might argue that this is a deeply religious perspective, just as the Buddha's son was named "Shackle" because family is a shackle to the one seeking enlightenment so he left his family behind to seek it. But that doesn't really seem to be the film's perspective either, since he goes back to them later. But the Stalker is interestingly quite like a Bodhisattva, refusing to find complete enlightenment and attain Nirvana himself (i.e. entering the Room) in order to guide others there.
@@viljamtheninja Ok, so, maybe the room represents organized religion and the guides are trying to take everyone there, but the real truth is not found in a church, but in the everyday world around us. That is what the final scene is about -- the child has the power to move objects, but the father is obsessed with the room and fails to notice the greater mystery/truth that exists in his own home. It's not the institutions, but the people who hold the real truth.
Excellent presentation. Russian folklore underlies all of Tarkovsky's cinema art. Russian folklore is complex with centuries of stories being told orally over and over being transformed over and over and yet undetectable in obvious narrative in the final films. That aspect is like a tacit undertow that resides deep in the complex meanings of each of Tarkovsky's films.
Very nice video. Tarkovsky plays with the convention that religious faith cannot simply be proven as real by outwardly showing miracles to prove itself. However i do even disagree with your proof at the end. (Spoiler Alert) Notice when the glass containers are moving, the train is also going by in the background. That means that every time that train goes by, it probably shakes items in the house so often that Monkey realizes the way it affects items in the house and even created a game she plays when she is bored. Just watching how the train's movement affects the items. Even here, Tarkovsky refuses to fully give the viewers the answers that they seek.
Hey everyone, just a reminder that you can watch Stalker for FREE on TH-cam courtesy of Mosfilm.
If you haven't watched it, definitely give it a shot, it's one of my favorite movies of all time:
th-cam.com/video/Q3hBLv-HLEc/w-d-xo.htmlsi=f2GcZ5yZjX_osVDq
I would like to add, this version seems to be higher quality than the HBO Max release of the Criteron version of the film
When directly compared the audio in the YT version you linked is much better, and the subtitles are better too (visually at least)
Most heady movies:
“What was that weird thing that just happened?”
Stalker:
“Was that thing that just happened weird?”
one of the most well written analysis i have seen in a while, truly well done. keep it up
It is a gripping film...and so is the novel it is based on: Roadside Picnic.
Similar to Solaris in that it Fucks with Your Mind. The Subconscious mind.
The characters are being driven by an underling motive that they themselves can't control.
Hey brother, I just wanted to say that this video essay is beyond excellent and deserves more attention. What a masterpiece of a film.
Hey thanks, glad you enjoyed it!
@@embellished-videos I really enjoyed your analysis of Stalker, I think you're pretty bang on with a lot of things. I wish they'd release a reworked version with English instead of Russian.
I really believe the dog is a manifestation of the zone itself into a physical form, a neutral observer. It knows the stalkers desire, to be with the zone because it brings him joy. The zone just goes ahead and grants the desire regardless of being a room or not, and the dog goes home with the stalker so stalker can be with the zone and the zone will be with the stalker. This also helps explain why monkey demonstrates her abilities at the end of the film, due to the zone being close to her and already having connection with her and her father.
Or the zone is just good to animals because
I can agree with that. If, on one hand, nothing had happened during their trip to the zone, on the other, every character got back to a non-sepia home and with a dog. It's the sign that "nothing" happened to them.
You forgot to mention another important character, Monkey, the Stalker's mutant daughter with psychic powers. That's a whole other angle.
Yeah I wanted to focus on the zone mostly.
But, I honestly feel like talking too much about her would give away some details that I prefer viewers to guess themselves.
Basically, I tried not to spoil the whole movie
@@embellished-videos im not sure how you look at it, but i always saw the scenes in colour as places of Hope. The Zone and scenes with Monkey are in colour. The Zone gives hope and the girl is hope because she can change the future / she is the future.
@@NameName-dx8lb I think it also specifically shows the connection between the Zone and Monkey, who presumably was crippled but also got her powers from her father's connection with the Zone.
Slow burner but a magical film to be sure.
Yeah, slow and beautiful, like all of Tarkovskys works.
@@embellished-videos I don't know if I would call Ivan's Childhood slow? It is definitely beautiful....but not slow. I really don't consider Solaris slow. Rublev and Mirror yes. Those fit your take.
It plays with my mind in that i will completely mentally check out after 90min, every time i watch it, but still act like its a great movie.
😂 yeah for me it’s 2001 space odyssey that does that. But I can’t even stand to watch 90mins of that movie.
What about the apocalypse now? That movie is boring
Yeah that one is slow too. But, I much prefer that to 2001. Parts of the movie are really cool and it's got a certain vibe to it.
There's another one that comes to my mind, Taxi Driver. I hated it first time I watched it, but really loved it on my next viewing.
I guess you have to be in certain mental space to enjoy these movies.
I watched it a few days ago at 00:00-03:00 without even looking at the phone or away in general once lol.
Stalker for me is a film that just captures me from start to finish, even in those 5 min long scenes wheres apparently "nothing" happening.
Social media didnt destroy my attention span yet and im kinda proud of that.
Thank you for your genius and Rest In Peace, Andrei Tcharkovsy
That's sad it ain't working for ya, I sink into it like a vivid dream, love it so much
Holy crap... never realized how much the Stalker video game was inspired by this film, down to the bolt you throw, wow.
If you're interested, give the book Roadside Picnic a try. I think it’s had an even bigger influence on games than the movie did.
Great video, for me the dog was always the prescience of the director. at least that was the strange impulse in my mind in Tarkovskys work as his spirit manifests most there with his dogs.
Great analysis. Loved the intro
Glad you enjoyed it!
One significant problem associated with Stalker which I haven't seen discussed much is that at least some viewers would have been familiar with the Strugatsky brother's book, Roadside Picnic, and its connection with the movie. As a result, such viewers might have drawn from the book where the movie tended to be different or even minimalistic, that is, viewers unconsciously integrating elements from the book into the movie; the basic nature of The Zone and the artifacts contained within it, and their special properties for example... e.g. In the book, the dangers are clearly laid out, where as in the movie, the potential power of the zone is not convincingly evidenced, though briefly with the glitch involving the bird, rain in The Room (?), and tangentially at the very end, when the Stalker's daughter displays psychokinetic abilities... In any case, I would think that anyone already familiar with the book would have a stronger tendency to assume The Zone to be genuinely magical and dangerous, which would tend to mask the intentions of the film director. One might even go so far as to say that Tarkovsky's film, with its religious undertones, uses the basic premise of the book, and certain elements from it, as vehicles for a very different story and even a different fundamental theme.
I’ve read the book after watching the movie.
Gotta say, they are barely related.
I feel like Tarkovsky started with true adaptation of the film(I mean there are some elements there), but abandoned that idea and went into completely different direction.
The book is amazing too and it also explores interesting ideas, plus it’s short. So it’s a good read.
Persoanlly I see the Stalker movie as an unofficial sequel to the book, where Red got his sudden wish of a better world for everyone, just not the obvious way, rather than suddenly having an utopia, he came to believe he can make the world a better place by taking people to the Zone, so they may have the experience he had.
The dog reappears in Nostalghia
Didn’t know that, haven’t seen it yet
@@embellished-videos I should post my Stalker and Nostalgia reviews....
@@rmsrmsrmsrmsyes sir.Do you have a letterboxd?
Beautiful thumbnail 👍
That movie isn't about destination, but the journey. And a good boi
Is the good boi the dog?
Great video and solid interpretation. 💪🏻
🙏
Good video. I wish you touched on the aspects of telekinesis, though. I have no idea what to make of that
Well, I think that telekinesis is there to answer the question of whether the magic of zone is real or not.
The kid in general can be interpreted in many ways.
But I’d like to think that it gives us a definite answer that it was not made up. We see a clear unexplained miracle.
My theory is that the Stalker and his family have already gone inside the room before and had their deepest desire fulfilled. The deepest desire the Stalker had was faith and purpose, and that's why he became a Stalker. He said that he has never been inside the room but I think that in the process of fulfilling his desire his memory of being inside the room was erased, since if he had kept the knowledge of the realness of the room then his faith would no longer be faith but fact. His wife also fulfilled her deepest desire which is to have a "Bittersweet love" with the Stalker, to have a meaningful life despite suffering, which we see in her monolog at the end of the film. And the kid of course desired superpowers, telekinesis, and perhaps the only one who knows the realness of the room since he is a direct proof of divine power. And probably also the only character in the film that seems to possess the truth and thus is free from suffering, since in every shot we see him, he is emotionless, while all the other characters have emotional breakdowns throughout the film. Great video tho, maybe do The Mirror next, it is my favorite Tarkovsky film.
Telekinesis in the film is meant to show the central argument about faith. There seems to be a lot of allusions to the concept that technology and scientific advancement have eradicated our ability to just blindly believe in things for the sake of belief. The two instances of telekinesis occur during scenes where the nearby train shakes the building; leaving it up to the interpretation of the viewer to decide whether this seemingly magical act is real or if it’s perfectly explainable through logic and rational thinking. (The cups move because the train shakes them)
I think the telekinesis was a callback to how objects on their house start moving whenever a train passes. And you could definitely interpret that from the angle of technology and how it has impacted our belief systems, or how it has been used as a form of "magical" oppression, under which we are mere, unaware subjects to.
I think it's about asking the viewer if it really is the train passing that made the glass move or Monkey's powers. Or maybe even Monkey's poetic musing that conjured that image of impossibility. Either way, you could say the answer is magic.
fantastic video
Thanks!
Superb video 👍
Thanks 🤗
so good
Fantastic!
Thank you!
Slow burn movies are my favorite
Whats the name of the song from the intro?
Not sure, it’s a license free song I’ve found somewhere, then i cut it up a bit to match the video
How accurate would it be: the movie is about living in the USSR which is the zone, the "room" represents religion/truth, and the character of the Stalker is a guide that wants to bring people to religion/truth. The director also plays the role of a meta-stalker who creates the movie in order to bring his audience to the truth of religion in the USSR? (I should stop here, but I will continue.) The scientist and the writer are intellectuals who don't believe in faith so they refuse to enter the room since it would destroy their world view. The stalker is a person of faith who has accepted his lot in life. Tarkovsky created the movie without any transcendence to a more beautiful existence because he felt that accepting your place and introspection are the best ways to cope with living in the USSR at the time.
Yeah, I'd say you're spot on. But, I also have to add that Tarkovsky never wanted his movies to be specifically about 1 thing. He wanted different people to feel and find different things in his movies.
@@embellished-videos Yes I totally agree with what you're saying The artist made it ambiguous enough so that everybody could come up with their own ideas
While there is some truth to it, that reading completely omits the fact that his obsession with the Zone is clearly an unhealthy one that's causing him to disrupt and abandon his family, for a truth he himself cannot even see.
Of course, one might argue that this is a deeply religious perspective, just as the Buddha's son was named "Shackle" because family is a shackle to the one seeking enlightenment so he left his family behind to seek it. But that doesn't really seem to be the film's perspective either, since he goes back to them later. But the Stalker is interestingly quite like a Bodhisattva, refusing to find complete enlightenment and attain Nirvana himself (i.e. entering the Room) in order to guide others there.
@@viljamtheninja Ok, so, maybe the room represents organized religion and the guides are trying to take everyone there, but the real truth is not found in a church, but in the everyday world around us. That is what the final scene is about -- the child has the power to move objects, but the father is obsessed with the room and fails to notice the greater mystery/truth that exists in his own home. It's not the institutions, but the people who hold the real truth.
perfect
What is that song at the end?
Not really a song, sorry dude. It's a 50 second loop.
this is a good video, congrats
Thanks!
Excellent presentation. Russian folklore underlies all of Tarkovsky's cinema art. Russian folklore is complex with centuries of stories being told orally over and over being transformed over and over and yet undetectable in obvious narrative in the final films. That aspect is like a tacit undertow that resides deep in the complex meanings of each of Tarkovsky's films.
real💯
Nice
⭐
Very nice video. Tarkovsky plays with the convention that religious faith cannot simply be proven as real by outwardly showing miracles to prove itself. However i do even disagree with your proof at the end. (Spoiler Alert) Notice when the glass containers are moving, the train is also going by in the background. That means that every time that train goes by, it probably shakes items in the house so often that Monkey realizes the way it affects items in the house and even created a game she plays when she is bored. Just watching how the train's movement affects the items. Even here, Tarkovsky refuses to fully give the viewers the answers that they seek.