[Movies] Stalker

After describing to a friend the crazy theories of 19th century Russian philosopher Nikolai Fedorov (eternal life, resurrection of the dead, space colonies, other cool stuff), she recommended that I watch the movie Stalker. It's directed by Andrei Tarkvosky, the famous Russian director who produced lots of famous arty stuff I can't name and haven't seen, except Solaris.

It's got a cool sci-fi-ish premise despite the placard at right, which leads one to believe its about a bald pedophile and his crutch-walking prey. No, instead, an alien force has landed out in Siberia, but any one or thing who goes to investigate disappears or gets killed. Eventually the authorities cordon off the entire area, which they dub "The Zone." There are a few people - Stalkers - who are able to navigate the area. Rumor has it that in one of the abandoned buildings of the Zone there's a room which will grant your deepest desires.

 (They sneak into the Zone behind that train full of transformers.)

It's basically a good excuse for lots of philosophizing and long, uninterrupted shots of beautifully rusty post-industrial landscapes. According to the Wikipedia page: "The film contains not more than 142 shots in 163 minutes with an average shot length of almost one minute and many shots lasting for more than four minutes." Crazy! Anyway, cool cinematography even if somewhat pretenious.

Also, the film doesn't really have anything to do with Fedorov.