Christopher Fujino’s review published on Letterboxd:
The film needs to be slower and duller at the start so that the viewers who walked into the wrong theatre have time to leave before the main action starts.
- Tarkovsky to the State Committee of the USSR on Cinematography
This sounds like one of those apocryphal quotes, but if Tarkovsky did, indeed, say this, he wasn't joking, as I'm sure many did walk out of the beginning of this film. It takes Stalker half an hour before anything happens. That first half hour is spent in a monochromatic (not quite black and white, but a brownish sepia, like rust or old newsprint) purgatory that I imagine isn't unlike everyday life behind the iron curtain. Three men--the stalker, the professor, and the writer--seem trapped in their meaningless, colorless existence, and so agree to venture together into the mysterious and forbidden "zone."
After the setup, Tarkovsky presents a 3-minute scene, without dialogue, of the three men riding a small, gas-powered trolley from the barb-wired fence at the edge of their dreary everyday life into "the zone." This scene evokes crossing over the river Styx, or tumbling down a rabbit hole, or getting your Kansas home caught up in a tornado, or passing through a wardrobe into Narnia. Our heroes are crossing over from the bleak, dreary, real world into one of fantasy, of wonderful treasures, but also of perilous dangers.
That Tarkovsky takes his time (and thus our own) making this passage in real time is surprisingly effective. Rather than merely cognitively recognizing this transition, we are invited to join with the characters in making the transition from one world to the next. When we get our first shot of the zone, my awe was appropriate to the occasion.
Comparing this to some of literature's most beloved fantasy stories is perhaps a little misleading. Before watching this, I had read comparisons to Apocalypse Now, which came out the same year, and those are apt. Even more so, I was reminded of Herzog's Aguirre, the Wrath of God, another low-budget guerilla-style film production that captures the savage, wildness of nature, and a titular character who probably finds himself too much at home in it.
It's incredible that Tarkovsky switched cinematographers mid-production, because the photography is the film's strongest point. The visuals are stunning. Now I'm a sucker for long takes and slow zooms, but here they always seem to have a sense of purpose. This is my first Tarkovsky film, but I fully believed I was in the hands of a master.
In fact, my one complaint about the film is that Tarkovsky didn't rely more on his visuals to tell the story. Especially in the second half, his three characters are excessively verbose. At one point, the writer complains that, "judging by [the stalker's] tone, he's going to start sermonizing again." But really, all three get plenty of time to sermonize at each other. The amazing photography, incredibly creepy soundtrack, and the intense performances from the three leads are all so strong that the seemingly endless philosophical musings/rants seemed superfluous (in particular I didn't like when characters directly addressed the camera). It seems like a distraction from some stunning outdoor settings.
Although Stalker doesn't offer up many answers, I don't think it's correct to call it enigmatic, because I'm not sure it's asking questions, either. I was curious about certain things while watching the film, but when I'd reached the end and still hadn't learned about those things, I wasn't unsatisfied. And I've never been particularly interested in the question "is this a dream or is it reality?" and so I'm glad Stalker seems to lie comfortably within that ambiguity. The main thing I cared about while watching Stalker was the journey, and in that sense it is a ringing success, with a triumphantly satisfying ending. We have been on a great, wondrous journey, we have seen characters change, learn things, and we know that you cannot leave the way you came.