Stalker (1979)

This review (well.. more of an analysis) is from a select part of the movie and aimed towards ONLY those who have seen it (lots of spoilers in other words), so if you have not seen the film i suggest watch it and come back later...

It is a select sceneanalysis which I wrote for a schoolessay. What i selected to write about is what happens after the zone added to it a brief synopsis.

Synopsis: Сталкер, Andrei Tarkovskijs adaptation of the Strugatskij brothers novell The Roadside Picknick, is about three mens journey through the zone - a scientist with hidden motives, a writer who have lost his intrest in writing and a stalker which is like a guide, a person who knows about the dangers of the zone and how to avoid them.

They need to journey through a military guarded area to get to the zone, which is an area where a meteorite previously hit, inside the zone with the guidance of the stalker the destination is the room which has the ability to grant, upon entering it, an innermost wish.

On the way to the room we get to learn about the "Porkypine", a stalker, who's brother died before they got to the room. The Porkypine then entered the room and wished for his brother to come back, however his innermost wish was to became rich and shortly thereafter he took his life.

The Room: At last when the stalker have guided the two men to the final destination of the journey, they choose to not confront the room since they don't know their innermost wish or feel the need to know what it possibly could be. With all the facts in hand, the road (journey) can be seen as the goal for the trip, through the zone, as it was the deciding factor for their final decision.


After the zone we return to the bar with the three men, the place where the journey begun, and the color of the film is now back to the sepiabrown of which it was from the beginning until they enter the zone. The dog which they met in the zone have followed them outside, I think Tarkovskij here points towards how animals exists freely, unlike humans, without any questions about their existans (animals are driven by instinct and acts well towards humans without asking for something in return. Perhaps something humans, in general, have to learn from?)

The Stalker is greeted by his wife and shortly after a discussion with the men they leave. In the comming scene, when the Stalker leaves the bar with his family, the colors change to what they where while in the zone therefor also the meaning of them becomes more clear. The colors in Сталкер have a relation with the stalker, his existans.


This scene also make a connection to the zone, an area untouched by humans full of vegetation, in contrast to the industrialised society (see picture) that is created by the needs humans have for their existans.

In the next scene I take it as Tarkovskij gives a final explaination to the colors in the movie, again with the sepiabrown color is used and the stalker, in his house, questions why the accordinging to him "intelligent people" that followed him to the zone doesn't believe in anything. The colors in the film therefor have a connection to what drives the stalkers existens, meaning, his family and to guide people through the zone, the colors becomes a way to show when the stalker is in a symbiosis with his environment. In the scene the stalker wonders to his wife why nobody believes in anything... who should he bring to the zone?... Nobody needs what he exists for/believes in... She follows this up by asking him if he wants to take her into the zone and as a reply the stalker says - "What if it doesn't work for you either?" (an existensial question, at the same a value of his own existens (what he exists through - family). The wife then tells him about how her mother was against her relationship with him and her view of the bittersweet everyday life. This points towards how the wife made a sacrifice in her existens for theirs.

The final scene, again in color, shows their daughter - the result of their existans together with all the sacrifices they had to make on the make aswell as the future of their existens. The ending, from the first scene after the room with it's connection to the beginning of the film (to explain further how the movie just enters something ongoing to then leave without a direct closure), also points towards that the film is just an event taken out of the stalkers everyday life - one of his journeys to the zone...