Product Description

Studio: Kino International Release Date: 11/07/2006 Run time: 163 minutes

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #12323 in DVD
• Brand: Kino Video
• Released on: 2006-11-07
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: AC-3, Black & White, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, Subtitled, NTSC
• Original language: Russian
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish, French
• Dubbed in: English, French
• Number of discs: 2
• Running time: 163 minutes

Amazon.com
Challenging, provocative, and ultimately rewarding, Andrei Tarkovsky's Stalker is a mind-bending experience that defies explanation. Like Tarkovsky's earlier and similarly enigmatic science fiction classic Solaris, this long, slow, meditative masterpiece demands patience and total attention; anyone accustomed to faster pacing is likely to abandon the nearly three-hour film before its first hour is over. On the other hand, those who approach Tarkovsky's work in a properly receptive (and wide awake) frame of mind are likely to appreciate the film's seductive depth of theme and hypnotic imagery. Set in what appears to be a post-apocalyptic future (although the time-frame is never specified), the eerie and unsettling story focuses on the title character, Stalker (Aleksandr Kajdanovsky), who leads characters known only as the Writer (Anatoli Solonitsyn) and the Scientist (or Professor, played by Nikolai Grinko) into a mysterious region called The Zone. Tarkovsky films their journey as a long odyssey, or religious pilgrimage, and center of The Zone--said to be under an alien influence--is where each of these men hopes to find a kind of personal transcendence. Despite obvious parallels to The Wizard of Oz, Tarkovsky's film is devoid of special effects or any fantastical elements typically associated with science fiction or fantasy. Instead, Stalker makes astonishing use of sound and bleak-but-beautiful imagery to envelope the viewer into the eerie atmosphere of The Zone and the dank, colorless landscape that surrounds it. And while the film's glacial pacing may be off-putting to some viewers, there's no denying that Stalker has a mesmerizing power of its own, including a thought-provoking and highly debatable ending that propels the film to a higher level of meaning and significance. --Jeff Shannon

On the DVD
Kino's DVD release of Stalker is impressive for a number of reasons. The superb image quality accurately preserves Tarkovsky's stark contrast of a dreary future with the colors of The Zone. Even more impressive is the surround-sound mix, which is nearly three-dimensional in its 5.1-channel clarity (allowing the film's dank, dripping environment to literally come alive on the soundtrack). Disc 2 offers new (2006) interviews with three of Tarkovsky's surviving collaborators (music composer Eduard Artemyev, cinematographer Aleksandr Knyazhinsky, and set decorator Rashit Safiullin), each providing their own unique and reverent perspective on Tarkovsky's creative process. A five-minute excerpt from "The Steamroller and the Violin" (Tarkovsky's 1960 diploma film from the Soviet film school VGIK) shows the young director already in admirable control of his craft, and "Memory" is a five-minute short from 1997 (directed by Serghei Minenok) that combines images of Tarkovsky's abandoned home in Russia with images from Stalker. Also included: A photo album of production images and behind-the-scenes stills, and language options including the original Russian, dubbed English, dubbed French, and optional English, French, or Spanish subtitles. --Jeff Shannon

Customer Reviews

The title STALKER is misunderstood
The title STALKER is quite misunderstood because many think it is a translation from a Russian word that means 'to stalk.'. Actually Tarkovsky's script inserted the word STALKER thinking it was a catchy English equivalent for something like a Russian pathfinder or guide. In that context, the central character's role is better understood, for he spends time leading the writer and scientist toward discovery and revelation, which they ultimately cannot achieve. STALKER is a masterpiece of imposed reality on the viewer. Make no mistake: this film is very difficult to stay with without your utmost attention. Little artifice, few physical elements, hardly any plot, STALKER exists as a journey that draws your mind, heart, and soul into the nature of human existence. Only those intelligent and sensitive enough to ride Tarkovsky's waves of feeling, emotion, and thought can comprehend his message of possible salvation and redemption through love and persistent searching for human truth. The writing on the video box implies this is another sci fi film, but clearly it is not. Tarkovsky's great films are mythical allegories in the tradition of Pilgrim's Progress or Piers Plowman. For me, Tarkovsky is the ultimate challenge in intellectual film making, because he presents and discusses his ideas only in the context of the film itself, not just as a media vehicle to speak. What strikes me most is his absolutely consistent sense of pace in all his films: slow, deliberate, but fluid and highly organic. He is one of the few great masters of film as an art form.

THE BEST FILM EVER CREATED
This is a film about faith, divine grace and the fruitless vanity stemming from our soul's original sin. To quote from one of the characters in the film," My mind preaches vegetarianism, but my heart longs for a juicy piece of steak." And this is the premise of the three characters journey into the Zone - to seek out their steak: to find the Room in the Zone that will grant them their wishes; and this coming from the very same people whose professions demands higher standards of moral living from them, careers that require them to preach vegetarianism. Of course they have failed in their lives professions, and the characters know this but their inner chaos stem from the private pains in their lives, their failure to live up to their calling and their denial/certainty about their indivisual failures and states of their tarnished souls. Although Stalker is someone who leads others into the the Zone as a guide, his purpose apparently being to help others obtain their wish and thus bring about happiness for others, yet Tarkovsky hints that Stalker's outward explaination is dubious as he will not hesitate to make scapegoats and guinea pigs of his clients in the face of uncertainty and danger. As for Writer, he is, yes, a writer who is going into the Zone to look and beg for inspiration and faith in life as a whole; until Writer can obtain this wish, his cynicism and lack of faith can be summed up in one of his quotes:" A writer can only write about his readers." Professor is a scientist whose reason for seeking out the Room is unspecified until at the very end of the film but I will not divulge his reason.He is a researcher who has to bear his boss's fury and defintely hates his job at the lab. Many great cinematic moments are to be found in the film, in fact the film is one great cinematic moment non-stop, even after it ends, and this can be attributed to Tarkovsky's brilliant handling of every aspect of the film; one can even go so far as to say that with this film tarkovsky proved that he is easily the Einstein of cinema. His vision is earth shattering, deviating almost completely from the original intentions of the writers of a novel on which the film was based. The ending when it is revealed the reason why one of the guides of the Zone hanged himself despite obtaining a wish from the Room will blow away anyone who lives in the frustrated knowledge of life and all our mortal desires as an empty vainity of vanities without the presence of God and selfless love. The editing, set designs, music and lighting, the human choreography, the wisdom and everything in this film qualifies it as the best film ever made. Totally original without trying to be. If you only watch one film for the rest of your life this has to be it! It will make you want to live better, stirring profound thoughts and feelings within you long after the film's over. This is more than a film, it's almost a miracle. The British label ARTIFICIAL EYE apparently has better English subtitles and shows the complete film without cuts unlike the American version, or so I read.

Tarkovksy's best film (along with Solaris)...
This film is as amazing as you have heard. It's arguably Tarkovsky's best film (and the last one he made completely under the auspices of the USSR), and a film that gets inside your head and your soul. The plot is rather simple. An alien force lands on Earth, and then leaves. The area where they landed is a vast wasteland where the laws of physics are suspended. It's been dubbed the zone (or 3OHA in Russian). A stalker (not the current definition), a writer, and a professor venture into the zone, where there is a room that will grant you your most inner wishes. Now, it's not what you ask for, it's what you really desire. The room reads into your soul. This is a very slow, cerebral movie (it wouldn't be a Tarkovsky movie otherwise), but it has to be seen many times to fully comprehend it. I love Stalker's "dream" sequence, which has one of the most amazing shots I've ever seen in cinema. The ending is really exceptional as well. I have seen Stalker at least 10 times, and I can see 10 more. It was a difficult shoot (Tarkovsky had to stop shooting because there was a defect in the film stock he was using. He had to reshoot from scratch, essentially), yet, it is Tarkovsky's greatest film along with Solaris and Andrei Rublev. When you watch it, make sure that you choose the original mono soundtrack. The DVD company, RUSCICO, remixed the soundtrack to 5.1 dolby, but they ADDED sound to the original film, including music during the ride to the zone (which originally only had dialogue and the sound of the trolley car). It was awful. They ended up reissuing the disc with both tracks after the outcry by Tarkovsky admirers.