Stalker Review

Review of Stalker (1979) by screenqueeen: 👍 5/5

A deeply contemplative work meant to redirect the grand focus of its world-building inwards. The titular stalker cannot imbibe in the wish-fulfillment promise of The Room for reasons known only by himself, and even those reasons are as ineffable & non-concrete as this stalker's divine reverence towards the Zone.

Pair Tarkovsky's penchants for slow camera movements and silent renaissance-like landscapes (and in some cases still life) with a loose adaptation of Roadside Picnic, a pointed science fiction novel and you have a recipe for some of the most poignant psychologically-charged dialogue set in a well-lived-in world coming apart at the seams.

It's not about the destination, man.