Film / Stalker (1979)

aka: Stalker

"A film about three men walking through the wooded territory, two of whom are mostly calm, and the third is constantly afraid of something."

— A popular recap of unknown origin

Stalker (Сталкер in Russian) is a 1979 Science Fiction film directed by Andrei Tarkovsky. Shot in Estonia, it is an adaptation (albeit a very loose one) of the Strugatsky Brothers' sci-fi story Roadside Picnic, who also wrote the film's script.

The film takes place in and around a devastated partially industrialised landscape called The Zone. At the centre of The Zone lies a location called The Room, which is said to grant the deepest desires of those strong enough to make it there, avoiding the numerous hazards for which The Zone has a fearsome and lethal reputation.

Our three main characters meet in a bar outside The Zone. They are only named by their professions: Stalker, Writer, and Professor. Stalker is the protagonist and bears the name of a class of semi-professional guides who are skilled at infiltrating the security cordon surrounding The Zone and avoiding the many hazards within it. Stalker regards The Zone with something close to religious awe and treats it as a temperamental deity to be appeased and wondered at. Writer is an urbane, fashionable, cynical author with a drinking problem. He has lost his inspiration, and believes he might regain it via the power of the Zone. Professor is a taciturn physicist, who appears to have no particular reason to visit The Zone, and a small backpack that he is very attached to.

The video game of the same name is loosely inspired by both the film and the original novel, while amping up the action and putting more emphasis on surviving the Zone itself.

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This film provides examples of:

• Abandoned Area: The Zone, which had to be abandoned after... whatever happened, and after the army's attempts to re-enter the Zone were destroyed, as shown by the burnt-out tanks. What once was an industrial area (the film was shot at an abandoned chemical plant in Estonia) is empty and overgrown by plant life and all-around creepy.
• Adaptational Abomination: The Zone and its origins are a lot more ethereal than either the video game or the original book: in the book, alien spacecraft hung over the Earth and everyone knows where the Zones are, and it's explicitly alien in origin, whereas in the game, it's a Soviet experiment gone wrong. The movie instead posits it's... something else, and the closest we get to finding out is rumours that a meteorite fell in what became the Zone. Even though a lot of the anomalies are unseen or undescribed, they're a lot more weird, if the one instance we see suddenly erasing a bird from existence says anything.
• Adaptational Mundanity: Compared to the novel or the video game, there's no bone-melting and science-defying Artifacts improving the outside world, no undead, no mutants and bandits running amok, or flashy Anomalies — the one Anomaly we see on-screen simply disappears a bird mid-flight, while its book counterpart twists and crushes its victims. The Zone is a much more lonely place, and its dangers are merely implied. The closest thing to an Artifact is the Room (and it's implied it's the only reason why anyone would want to go into the Zone, as compared to retrieving and selling artifacts for research) and if the Professor wasn't being sarcastic during his Motive Rant, it might have given the outside world practical uses of lasers — he does mention science being abused, but it's a footnote compared to his concern about the rise of crime and strife in the world that may have come about from the Room.
• Adaptational Nice Guy: Stalker is much more kind and noble than Redrick, his counterpart in the Roadside Picnic, and while his motivations for being a Stalker are the same (not wanting to work a mundane job in a mundane world), he's far more altruistic — he claims to only be helping the kind of desperate, worn-out, incredibly sad loners who need to be desperate for a better life to risk said life to traverse the Zone. Compare Red, who winds up breaking a huge taboo in smuggling an incredibly dangerous Artifact out to be sold to militaries and later sacrifices a boy to the Meat Grinder, albeit with the intent of carrying out the boy's wish.
• The Alcoholic: Writer is the first to the bar, is refused spirits and so buys beer as if that doesn't count. Stalker later tips away Writer's booze stash (hidden under Writer's decidedly Not-So-Badass Longcoat), which really puts Writer in a foul mood for most of the trip.
• All There in the Manual: Given how very little the film actually explains, familiarity with the source story helps. Have you been wondering how the bolts with a length of cloth tied to them is supposed to help find a safe route? Roadside Picnic describes the area containing anomalous spots of extremely high gravity. Throwing something solid with a fluttering tail behind it would be an excellent way of spotting those due to the flying arc suddenly dipping.
• All There in the Script: An early draft of the script pegs the Writer's name as "Anton" and the Stalker's as "Victor", with the Professor being "Phillip". This is never mentioned in the film as Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep" in the film.
• Applied Phlebotinum: If the Professor's rant is right, then the Room has been responsible for a lot of social, government, and scientific upheaval by granting the wishes of anyone who enters it, and its power has made Stalker a living by guiding countless people to the Room and out. Whatever it is, it definitely grants anyone who enters' deepest desires. Writer claims to want inspiration (though he quickly admits he's lying and just wants to know what his writer
• Art Shift: From sepia in the town to color in The Zone—although interestingly, the Stalker's crippled and telekinetic daughter "Monkey" is always shot in color for her scenes, which are in the town.
• Author Avatar: The Writer's monologues — fiction vs. fact, fans vs. the creator and the nature of fandom demanding and analysing everything a creator has to offer to the story's detriment, storytelling that defies a boring mundane world, a creator's legacy, and an attempt to make art that's only seen as mere entertainment to be consumed and forgotten — all seem to mirror
• Be Careful What You Wish For: The Room (allegedly) takes this one step further: You do not ask for your wish out loud or even consciously. Instead, it looks into your mind and fulfills your greatest desire. Do you even know what you want? Do you dare find out? This is what ultimately drove Porcupine to suicide - he sacrificed his brother to the Meat Grinder and went into the Room wishing him back, but the Room instead saw his desire for riches and gave it to him, leaving him utterly despondent.
• Book Ends: The film begins with the shot of a glass moving on a table due to the vibration from an off-screen passing train. The film ends with Monkey watching glasses move across a table, but only before the train begins to pass.
• Boring Return Journey: Neither the Writer nor the Professor have the guts to enter the Room. They sit there at the entrance for a while, then the film cuts to everyone back at the bar, having left the Zone.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall:
  • Right before the climax in the third act, the Writer, who — once more, fed up with the Stalker and the Professor — gets separated from the others by an Anomaly, delivers a monologue directly into the camera, explicitly away from where the Stalker and the Professor are watching him, about why he writes despite hating writing, and the nature of reality vs. the nature of writing — all seem to be from Tarkovsky's opinions on film.
  • Toward the end of the movie, the Stalker's wife addresses the camera and the audience directly, giving a little speech in which she explains that she knew all about the problems she'd have with the Stalker, including his emotional instability and the risk that their children would be born with defects, but she married him anyway, and it was worth it, as she got the highs along with the lows instead of a "dull, gray life".
• Burning the Ships: After entering the Zone on a motorized railroad hand cart, the Stalker starts it up again and sends it off back from where they came. He explains to his clients that you can't leave the Zone in the same way in which you entered.
• The Cake Is a Lie: A variant in that the Room grants you your deepest, most unconscious desire, one that you may only be in denial over, faintly aware of if not totally ignorant, or absolutely do not want. This is what "killed" Stalker's mentor, Porcupine: he sacrificed, accidentally or otherwise, his brother to enter the Room, and despite wishing adamantly for his brother to come back to life, the Room instead found his desire: riches. He came away very rich, but deeply remorseful, and killed himself a week later.
• Clap Your Hands If You Believe:
  • This is implied to be how the Zone "punishes" people; at one point, Writer takes out a gun, much to Stalker's horror, and Stalker implies that if you walk into the Zone expecting a threat, the Zone will give you a threat.
  • Much of the film is an allegory on hope and faith: Writer bemoans science taking out all the joy and supernatural wonder of life and admits to not really wanting to go into the Room, just in case his innermost desire is... something else, while Professor simply hopes to measure it and in actuality, hopes to destroy the Room, blaming it for granting the wishes of evil men and in his eyes, causing the rise of crime, social strife, dictatorships, and science run amok. Stalker is disgusted with both men, and during the climax is reduced to tears as he's begging for them not to take away the one thing that outsiders and those who have lost everything and are willing to risk death by the Zone guards or the Zone itself just for the faint hope that they might improve their life. In the end, Stalker literally cries himself to sleep as he laments that people like Writer and Professor have no hope and no wish to see what might be possible beyond their lives.
• Cool Car: The three charge the gates in a Series II 88" Land Rover. It gets absolutely riddled with machine gun bullets, but sees them through safely.
• Contemplate Our Navels: All the characters, particularly Writer, are fond of long philosophical monologues.
• Creepy Child: Invoked in-universe - as with the original novel, it's generally held that there is something wrong with the children of Stalkers, and
• Cursed with Awesome: Monkey is a cripple, but may have psychic powers.
• Deliberately Monochrome: Like other Tarkovsky films. The monochromatic / sepia town scenes contrast with the colorful Zone. Monkey (Stalker's daughter) is also in color despite the town being greyscale.
• Door of Doom: The visitors sit outside the door of the Room for a long time, but never do work up the nerve to go in.
• Double Take: As the trio argue amongst themselves before entering the Room, a phone goes off in the middle of one of Writer's rants. Bear in mind, this is a long-abandoned factory in the middle of an Eldritch Location that requires a grueling, potentially deadly journey to get to. Writer, without missing a beat, picks it up, tells them they have the wrong number, and hangs up... and slowly realises, along with the other two, that the call he just took should not be possible.
• Driven to Suicide: Porcupine, who killed himself out of guilt when the Room granted him his true inner wish — money — instead of what he believed was his wish, to resurrect his brother.
• Drives Like Crazy: Stalker cannot drive in a straight line, even on railroad tracks.
• Dungeon Masters Girlfriend: Stalker's wife.
• Dysfunction Junction: Stalker has just returned from prison, presumably having been sent there for illegally going into The Zone. His daughter, Monkey, is crippled. Writer has come to The Zone because he no longer feels inspired in his writings. Professor wants to get a Nobel Prize and be respected by other academicians. Stalker's wife, despite arguing with Stalker, is the closest in the film to a happy person because she is the only person whose wishes have been granted.
• Eldritch Location: The Zone in all its incarnations (book, film, and game) is a sterling example of this trope. A very, very ominous place that will apparently kill you if you do something wrong.
• Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": Stalker, Writer, and Professor. Since entering the Zone is illegal, using an alias would make sense in the event one of them should be caught; they cannot identify each other by name. On the other hand, no-one in the movie is actually given a name - the Stalker's daughter is only known by her affectionate nickname of "Monkey", and the deceased Stalker who taught, well, the Stalker, is only referred to as "Porcupine". Not even the dog gets a name.
• Failed a Spot Check: One of the soldiers trying to prevent people from approaching The Zone sees Stalker's car, but does not think that Stalker is hiding under the car.
• Final Boss: It's played with in that The Meat Grinder is hyped up to be the last Anomaly to cross
• Forbidden Zone: The Zone has been closed to visitors, and is patrolled by the military, but the Stalker and his clients still make their way in.
• Freudian Trio: Writer (Id), Stalker (Superego), and Professor (Ego).
• Gainax Ending: No one enters the Room. The Professor gives up on his intent on destroying the Room, and instead, the three sit in silence as a rainstorm starts, then stops. The trio return home, where Stalker is picked up by his wife. The significance of the final shot, with Monkey using her psychokinetic abilities to push some glasses off a table as a train roars by the apartment and shakes it, has long been one of the major points of debate regarding this film.^note Arthur C. Clarke said it redeemed the entire film, in his opinion.
• Genius Loci: The Zone is understood to be living - Writer and Professor scoff at this, but when Writer gets fed up and tries to leave the group, a voice, heavily implied to be the Zone itself, calls out to demand that he stop. Later, it's revealed Writer brought a gun, and Stalker is absolutely terrified — the Zone will see it as an insult, and the Zone will kill him, with the implication that if anyone in the Zone expects a fight or something horrific, they'll get it, alright.
  The Zone wants to be respected. Otherwise it will punish.
• Geo Effects: The shortest route between two points within The Zone is never in a straight line. Oh, and never attempt to retrace your steps.
• Hates the Job, Loves the Limelight: After probably almost getting killed by an Anomaly, the Writer admits that he hates writing but can't stop himself from doing it; he compares his need to write as akin to passing hemorrhoids and hates his fans, even though they're perfectly literate people analysing a work as they should, for they apparently only want to just read instead of be changed by his work.
• Have a Gay Old Time: The usage of "Stalker" is not about the modern usage of "follow someone around obsessively" - it instead refers to its original meaning of sneaking past something, often to trespass or steal.
• Hell Is That Noise: Professor and Writer are disturbed by strange sounds in the distance that sound like wolves howling, not long after their arrival to the Zone. Stalker, however, dismisses this, saying that there's nobody out here, except themselves. He's clearly rattled by the thought that there could be life within the Zone.
• Hollywood Atheist: Discussed. Writer accuses the Professor of being a materialistic rationalist who'd rather reduce everything to mundane, boring laws and theories of science, and proclaims that art is truly the only thing humankind can do without selfishness, for art is "the truth" whereas science is just a crutch. The Professor, who actually seems to be religious to some extent, scoffs at his accusations and points out that art or not, people still die all the time.
• Hollywood Homely: Invoked: part of Stalker's wife's breakdown is that she's spent most of her life with him, including her youth, only for him to piss it away on getting jailed for trespassing into the Zone.
• Hollywood Old: Invoked with the Stalker's wife, who is in absolute despair that the Stalker would rather risk another lengthy prison term - she's furious that that if he leaves for another trip into the Zone, he'll be locked up for so long that she'll be dead by the time he gets out. She's a middle-aged (at worst) woman, though she does live in poverty in a heavily polluted area.
• I Don't Like the Sound of That Place: The final hazard is an Anomaly called the "Meat Grinder", and it's the most lethal Anomaly yet — the way Stalker about it, it's directly killed one important background character (Porcupine's brother), and it's implied it's killed countless other visitors and Stalkers. This really perturbs Writer most of all, who has a nervous breakdown after passing through the Anomaly before the Meat Grinder and snaps at Stalker over being forced to go first into rooms filled with danger (by Stalker's admission) twice, with the third time really being the final straw, especially we don't see exactly what the Meat Grinder looks like.
• In-Universe Camera: A Leaning on the Fourth Wall example. A scene has the cameraman visibly treading down some long grass, and the Professor and Writer casting prolonged nervous looks directly into the camera. But the film clearly plays it as though the moving grass is a result of the Zone's weird phenomena and that the Writer and Professor's nervousness and stolen looks are due to feeling as though they are being watched, which, well, they are. The Stalker, meanwhile, who is familiar with the Zone, notably doesn't share their trepidation and keeps his back to the camera all the time.
• Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: The soldiers patrolling The Zone cannot hit Stalker's slow-moving Land Rover, but they do manage to wreck their own electrical equipment.
• Industrial Ghetto:
  • The town Stalker lives in is a polluted, dreary wasteland whose primary landmark is a power plant belching smoke into the air, bordering a disgusting, dirty lake. It's a small wonder one of the first things Stalker does when he gets back into the Zone is to lay down and enjoy the grass.
  • The Zone itself is partially consisted of crumbling, industrial wrecks; the area that contains the Room proper can only be reached a long, industrial passageway into some kind of factory. (In real life, it was a decomissioned power plant.)
• Ironic Nickname: The "dry tunnel" has a large waterfall and is flooded. Previous Stalkers gave it that name as a joke.
• Leave the Camera Running: A Tarkovsky staple: long stretches of film are dedicated to long, silent stretches of little activity; most notable are the long close-ups on the men as they travel into the Zone proper on a railcar, a lengthy maybe-dream sequence of Stalker lying in a polluted river as the camera slowly pans over discarded debris, and finally, a rainstorm stopping and starting as the three men sit outside the Room, trying to figure out what to do.
• Legacy Character: Stalker. All Stalkers lead people into The Zone, and when one leaves the job, their apprentice becomes Stalker.
• Loners Are Freaks: It's all but outright stated that people who come to the Zone to seek the Room are in some way lonely, and in some way damaged, crushed by society and driven to desperation to seek something that might make them happy. Writer appears to be unable to hold down a relationship and admits to loathing his fans, while Professor is heavily implied to have been blackballed by his superiors for having ideas contrary to theirs. Stalker himself has, at times, a distant relationship with his wife, and admits that "anywhere is a prison".
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: It's generally left pretty ambiguous as to whether The Zone really does have all the fantastical qualities that Stalker claims. For example:
  • The trio find a tonne of burnt-out cars and tanks. It's noted that they could have been vehicles lost in the chaos of the evacuation, or the Zone destroying them.
  • The group hears a pack of canines. Nothing is supposed to be able to live in the Zone, and yet, the group clearly hears their howling. When pressed for an answer, Stalker simply leaves.
  • The Zone didn't directly give Porcupine the money he so coveted, and it's described as Porcupine simply getting really lucky.
  • Stalker himself doesn't know if the Room actually works - he never sees the people he guides there again and thus can't figure out if their wishes actually came to life. The sole exception was Porcupine, and even this was a second-hand story.
  • At one point, Stalker dreams about a dog watching over him in a completely different spot where he fell asleep; in the waking world, the dog is there, and follows him out of the Zone and into the "real world".
  • Writer pulls out a gun as he's about to enter a room. Stalker panics and tells him to get rid of it, because if the Zone sees it, it'll take it as a sign of disrespect and kill him. Writer's reaction makes it clear he thinks it's superstition on Stalker's part, but rather than risk it, does as he's told and drops the gun.
  • Later, the Professor blames the Room for granting the wishes of "evil men" and causing criminals, corruption, disasters, and impossible science to wrack the world, but is he just exaggerating or projecting his frustrations onto the Zone? And finally, Monkey apparently telekinetically pushes glasses across the table as she reads, but this could be anything from the railcar tremors to a dream sequence.
• Mind Screw: What is in the Zone? What's the deal with the Room? Does Monkey have superpowers? In general, the movie is far more abstract than the novel or video game - while the novel was already plenty strange, the movie strips out more of the harder science speculations and the appearance of aliens, opting to replace them with meditations on hope and faith, turning the Zone into an even more unreal, borderline-Dadaist wasteland.
• Mysterious Waif: Stalker's daughter, Monkey — able to move glasses by force of will as an effect of The Zone.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Porcupine led his brother to his death, either on purpose or by accident, and entered the Room to bring his brother back. The Zone instead gave him his true desire: to be very rich. It only took him a week out of the Zone to hang himself out of guilt.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: One of the rooms in The Zone is called the "meat mincer".
• Negative Space Wedgie: The Zone has mysterious properties, including the ability to kill people and wreck technology via "Anomalies", and is alive in some kind of manner in order to enforce its rules. Highlights include:
  • The quickest way to get to something is to take a route that, in the outside world, would be the longest way to get to it.
  • You cannot enter or exit the Zone, or any location in it, the same way you left.
  • You cannot travel alone in the Zone. When Writer has enough of Stalker and Professor, he tries to find his own path to the Room, only to be commanded to halt by an unknown voice — likely the Zone itself. And later, when Professor insists on going back to get his rucksack, the Zone loops Stalker and Writer into a path that leads them right back to the Professor.
  • At one point, the group comes across the wreckage of dozens of army tanks and fleeing refugee vehicles, and it's strongly implied the Zone wiped them all out. Later, when Writer yanks out a gun to clear a potentially dangerous room, Stalker tells him that if the Zone detects the gun, it'll kill Writer, claiming the Zone sees the gesture as an act of disrespect.
  • The Anomalies aren't well-described, but they are lethal and require a bolt or some kind of object to test your path. The one Anomaly we see on-screen erases a bird entering the wrong area from existence.
• No Place for Me There: When accused of wanting to enter the Room, Stalker vigorously protests that he — and Stalkers in general — do not want to enter the Room - out of fear that the Zone might punish them, that he's content to see people have their wishes granted, and, it's heavily implied, feeling that they don't deserve such happiness.
• Nothing Is Scarier:
  • Part of the Room's horror is that it reveals the deepest desire of anyone who enters, no matter how awful or terrible it is, and the Writer hesitates to enter for this reason. His reasoning helps him fully suss out why Porcupine killed himself: Porcupine dared to see what he really desired, and it cost him his brother and then his life as he couldn't live with this realisation.
  • Another part is the sheer uncertainty of what happens to people who enter. The Meat Grinder is never described beyond its name, but if it's anything like the novel version, it's not at all pleasant. Stalker admits he doesn't know what happens to people who enter the Room and get out alive, and the film implies at least some of them end up like Porcupine: dead by their own hand, or worse.
  • When Stalker sees that Writer brought a gun with him for self-defense, Stalker freaks out and tells him that if the Zone sees it, it will kill him, and he doesn't elaborate on how it will kill him.
  • The insane tension as the Writer crawls through the Anomaly guarding the entrance to the Room. The most we see of what it does is... simply disappearing a bird that flew in the wrong direction.
  • Stalker is noticeably tense when he hears dogs, and when Writer and Professor ask, he says it shouldn't be possible for people to live in the Zone, and yet there's animals here. His companions ask if that's a good or bad thing, but Stalker calms his nerves by walking off, as usual.
  • In general, unlike the book or video game, the Anomalies are, at best, described with one or two lines to leave a lot to the imagination.
• Nuke 'em: The Professor wants to destroy the Room using his nuclear bomb to prevent it from being used For the Evulz. However, he gives up the plan and disassembles the bomb after the Writer has a revelation about the Room.
• Only Known by Their Nickname / Only One Name: Stalker implies it is safer for everyone in case they are arrested that no one knows anyone else's name, although the trend encompasses almost the entire cast: Stalker, Writer, Professor, Luger, Monkey, Stalker's Wife, Writer's Girlfriend, and Teacher (or Porcupine).
• Oh, Crap!: Writer decides to go off on his own until a disembodied voice — almost certainly The Zone itself — shouts at him to "Stop right where you are!"
• The Oner: Andrei Tarkovsky is in love with them.
• Post-Apocalyptic Dog: The Stalker takes possession of a dog he finds amidst the ruins.
• Pragmatic Adaptation: One of the many reasons for this being such a loose adaptation of the Strugatsky brothers' novel Roadside Picnic (to the point of being an In Name Only adaptation) is that a literal depiction of many of the bizarre events described in the book would be well beyond the special effects technology available at the time, especially in the Soviet Union.
• Prefers Rocks to Pillows: The Stalker clearly feels amiss and awkward in his domestic civilian life, and spends the first part of the film downcast and mostly silent compared to Writer and Professor. Upon reaching the Zone, his markedly raised mood, excitement, and increased talkativity quickly makes it clear that he feels much more at home there, as strange, unpredictable, and dangerous as the Zone might be. One of his first acts when he reaches the Zone is to ecstatically lie down in some long grass and just... vibe.
• Protagonist Title: The title of the movie refers to the Stalker, the man who guides the Professor and the Writer through the Zone.
• Psychological Horror: Nothing overtly scary happens in the movie.
• Public Domain Soundtrack: Ode to Joy and Maurice Ravel's "Bolero."
• The Quest: The Stalker's clients are all on one to get to the Room and have their wish granted. In the end, neither of them can go through with what they came to the Zone to do and the quest goes unfinished.
• Quest for a Wish: Supposedly, the mysterious place know as "the Room", which is found deep within the Zone, grants wishes, which is why the Stalker's clients have come.
• Real Is Brown: Used as a metaphor, where the world outside The Zone is (mostly) filmed in washed-out sepia tones.
• Ruins of the Modern Age: This effect is achieved with the ruined factory.
• Running Gag: Writer asks several questions during the trip, but most of them are either just answered vaguely, if not outright by both Stalker and Professor.
• Rule of Symbolism: This film runs on religious imagery.
• Scenery Gorn: Anywhere outside The Zone. Overlaps with Crapsack World.
• Scenery Porn: Almost anywhere inside The Zone, the exploded tanks, artillery, and incinerated corpses of the armies sent to surround The Zone notwithstanding.
• Science Is Wrong: Two of Writer's early monologues carry this theme: when we're introduced to Writer, he laments the fact that science has stripped wonder from the world, and nothing as interesting as, say, flying saucers or ghosts could exist in this world according to science's laws, and even something as strange as The Bermuda Triangle can just be reduced to a simple geometric shape. Later, in the Zone proper, he sneers at the Professor's 'science', claiming all it really does is extend human misery by giving humans a crutch, compared to art, the "absolute truth". The Professor, for his part, snorts and points out that people die regardless of art being made.
• Shout-Out: Stalker is called "Chingachook" or "Big Snake", and "Leatherstocking" in reference to characters from The Last of the Mohicans. Fittingly, it's Writer who calls him this.
• Single Woman Seeks Good Man: At the end, Stalker's wife explains that, despite her earlier breakdown and cursing of his name, she stays with Stalker, even though her own mother disproved and even though she knew it'd be a life of hardship and poverty, she saw a kind of lust for life in him — a desire to not live a dreary life.
• Sliding Scale of Shiny Versus Gritty: Doesn't get much gritter than this, as three run-down unshaven middle-aged men creep through a filthy, wrecked, abandoned chemical plant. The town the Stalker lives in is also grim and depressing.
• Speech-Centric Work: The film essentially consists of long, rambling monologues about life, the universe and everything, coupled with lengthy shots of nature and not much else.
• State Sec: The stormtroopers assigned to patrol The Zone, who all wear rather fascist-looking trenchcoats and resemble cops and not soldiers guarding a very weird anomaly.
• The Stoic: Compared to the Writer, who is moody, sarcastic, and sometimes jovial in the face of potential death, the Professor takes the dangers of the Zone calmly. When the Writer tries to debunk his
• True Art Is Angsty: In-Universe. The Writer is easily the most miserable and cynical of the main characters - he claims to be seeking inspiration to write, but as the journey nears its end, he admits he hates writing, hates the fact he can't seem to make the art he wants to make, and most of all hates the fans who demand more "entertainment" to be dissected instead of engaging with his art in a way that changes them. The Stalker explains early on that the Zone spares those who are unhappy, and after the Writer passes through the Meat Grinder unscathed, the Stalker remarks with wonder that he could live in the Zone for 100 years.
• Unknown Phenomenon: The Zone, not unlike Solaris. No one is sure if it's even alien; two characters remark that a meteorite supposedly fell where the Zone is now, but even that's up in the air.
• Unkempt Beauty: Alexei's mother and Stalker's wife, both based to varying degrees on Tarkovsky's mother.
• What You Are in the Dark: The Room grants your deepest desire, regardless of whether you're conscious of it or not. The reason Porcupine killed himself is because, when he went to the Room to wish for his brother to be resurrected, the Room granted him immense wealth instead, and he couldn't live with the realization that he wanted to be wealthy more than he wanted his brother back.
• Wonder Child: Monkey appears to have telekinetic powers.
• You All Meet in an Inn: Stalker, Writer, and Professor start off in a bar.