Stalker

Stalker is a Soviet science-fiction film directed by Andrei Tarkovsky, released in 1979. It was adapted from Arkady and Boris Strugatsky’s 1972 novel Roadside Picnic, although the screenplay, credited to the brothers, substantially changes the book’s setting, characters, and central premise. Tarkovsky’s film follows an unnamed guide, called the Stalker, who illegally leads two clients into the forbidden Zone: a Writer searching for inspiration and a Professor carrying scientific equipment. At the Zone’s center is said to stand a room capable of granting a visitor’s deepest wish.

The journey is not treated as an adventure of visible monsters or conventional action. The Stalker warns his companions that the Zone is dangerous because it changes its routes and responds unpredictably to human intentions. After they enter by rail trolley, the film shifts from the sepia-toned industrial world outside to color imagery within the Zone. The three men cross flooded ruins, grass, abandoned structures, and the ominous Meatgrinder while arguing about art, knowledge, faith, and the motives that have brought them there. The Professor eventually reveals that he has brought a bomb to destroy the room, fearing its potential misuse. He does not detonate it, and none of the men enters the room.

Alexander Kaidanovsky plays the Stalker, with Anatoly Solonitsyn as the Writer and Nikolai Grinko as the Professor. Alisa Freindlich appears as the Stalker’s wife, and Natasha Abramova plays their daughter, Monkey. The film was photographed by Aleksandr Knyazhinsky and features a score by Eduard Artemyev, who combined electronic sound with other musical elements. Much of the Zone imagery was filmed in and around industrial locations near Tallinn, in the Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic.

Stalker had an unusually troubled production. Tarkovsky initially began filming with cinematographer Georgy Rerberg, but problems involving the processed footage and disagreements during production led to extensive reshooting. Knyazhinsky replaced Rerberg, and the finished film was largely remade. Tarkovsky also revised the screenplay repeatedly with the Strugatskys. The picture premiered in the Soviet Union in 1979 and was selected for the Cannes Film Festival’s competition in 1980, where it received the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury. Its final scene returns to the Stalker’s home, where Monkey appears to move glasses across a table without touching them, as a train passes nearby. The sound design, including the recurring train noise, strengthens the uneasy connection between domestic space and the Zone. Critics often treat it as Tarkovsky's landmark work.