STALKER (1979) Proves you don’t need an amazing budget to make an amazing film.

STALKER (1979)

So, right off the bat I’ll say that most of you will probably not have seen this movie unless you’re film buffs, as it was made in the soviet union in the 1970s. Not a hugely transparent time for foreign films.

However. You all should. It is absolutely fantastic. And I am happy to tell you why.

Really, what STALKER does best is its enrapturing atmosphere. It’s nearly 3 hours long, and while technically quite slow, you’re on the edge of your seat after the first minute and remain there for the rest of the night. And while a lot of (admittedly fun) movies these days create atmosphere via super loud music and explosions and giant robot fights and other such dramatic effects, STALKER creates its atmosphere on a budget of approximately “whatever we happened to find in our pockets or lying on the ground.”

I could go on for hundreds of pages about all of the amazing qualities of this movie, but, for now, I’ll just focus on one key point: that with a tiny budget and virtually no effects of any kind, they made an absolutely gorgeous movie. It doesn’t take a billion dollars and ten thousands VFXers to make a really aesthetically pleasing movie. Stalker proves you can do it with just a fantastic director. (And of course, great actors to carry the plot.)

It was actually quite interesting for me, going in to this movie, as I’ve played the games based off the movie and book (the movie is based off the book, the games off the previous two) and I was really wondering how they could possibly capture the beautiful, haunting atmosphere of The Zone without a huge FX budget. I was very, very pleasantly surprised, and it actually changed how I view movie making forever.

But I still got STALKER, and STALKER is wonderful.

Andrei Tarkovsky uses extremely limited resources, but creates a whole greater than the sum of its parts. Objectively, it’s just a bunch of old buildings and swamps and fields and other odd locations, but he uses amazing panning shots, slow sweeps of the camera that reach into your soul and really make you feel the awe of witnessing The Zone. His use of the frame is also absolutely amazing, I don’t think I’ve come across a single scene or image that isn’t beautiful, for its use of color, geometric shapes (which are a very strong theme and even part of the plot) and other general framing devices. “Every frame is like a painting” isn’t just hyperbole, this movie is absolute haunting beauty from every angle, every moment.

There is also, on an interesting point, water in every single frame of the entire movie, in one way or another.

The other thing Andrei Tarkovsky does fantastically well is implying the horrors of The Zone. There is one shot in particular that comes to mind, where we see a shot of Writer looking at… something… off-camera. And the look of raw emotion in his eyes is enthralling, and the camera slooooooowly pans over to what he’s looking at, and just as you’re about to see it, cuts away. It’s almost like an inverse jump scare technique. There is no ‘boo!’, the shock and fear is all in your head.

In closing for now, STALKER is an absolute film masterpiece, one that I cannot recommend highly enough. Be wary, potential Stalkers: it is an extremely emotional piece, and an extremely thought-provoking one. And, frankly, extremely grim (like most Russian art and philosophy, lookin’ at you, Dostoevsky). But if you feel The Zone calling to you, I say you absolutely should answer that call, and see all of the strange beauty this fantastic work of art has to behold.

Go on. Go through the door. Watch the movie.