Day 297
Monday 23 April 2018 4.43am
STALKER 1979
An Andrei Tarkovsky Film
This two-hour-and-thirty-nine-minute-film reduced me to tears during the final ten minutes even though I don’t know the intention of the writers or the director. I was disconcerted because I don’t – didn’t – know the beliefs of the creator of the film and I don’t know what he wants me to believe and I can see three different possibilities as I have the ability to understand life on this planet.
Stalker offers an argument for all three, being 1) good or 2) evil; or 3) being sidetracked from living life because we think there’s a final place at which we can arrive, which is a) heaven or b) hell.
I don’t know what Tarkovsky wanted me to feel or believe when the film ended. I don’t know what he believes or believed. I only know that it took me on a journey where I could see that the main character was more of a guide than a stalker. If the guide has an agenda, to direct someone towards a room at the end of the journey, which delivers what they want; or a room at the end which reveals that the room at the end of the journey doesn’t deliver what they want; then Tarkovsky delivers both. The third result, explained by the dialogue, “when they see the room they want me to lead them out of, back to where they came from”, it could mean that the room delivers nothing – its empty – there are no deliveries on certainty and the promises that certainty should deliver. The journey ends with there being no God and no Hell.
Stalker offers three interpretations of who the guide is and what is at the end of the journey. The room at the end is one of three options, 1) heaven, 2) hell or 3) nothing.
The second or third option is the most likely (according to what I perceive as Tarkovsky’s personal belief). I say that because when you reach the end of the journey and there is either hell or nothing, you’d most probably go back to trying out all three of the possible options again, hoping for a different outcome – your version of heaven.
I say that because nature has instilled humanity with a desire to survive that trumps our desire to die. Built into our DNA is an instinct that makes us react in a way that gives us the best chance of self-preservation. Lacking that desire, whittled down over a few decades, it gives me the chance to ask the question, what if you don’t care anymore if it is just a matter of too much smoke and too many mirrors.
My first thought now is that I can’t see why Tarkovsky’s films (Mirror, Stalker and Andrei Rublev) appears on the Top 100 List. If I was voting, I wouldn’t think to include any film by Tarkovsky in my Top Ten. Or if I’d only seen one film by Tarkovsky, I still can’t see myself voting for it in my Top Ten.
I’d also want to know how and where the voters saw their Tarkovsky film and why any of them rank in their Top Ten Ever. It’s got to be part of a plan from someone with another agenda to push Tarkovsky’s films higher in the final Top 100. I’m GOING TO TO LOOK AT THE ETHNICITY OF THE NAMES OF THOSE VOTERS. Is it a worldwide vote or a vote favouredby a specific group within the larger group of voters?
[By the way, the word desire is fraught with problems, because it gives us an outcome, a few verbs and a few nouns. The ones that interest me are
DIE RESIDE RIDE SIRE SIDE RISE DIRE SEED IRE SEE REED SEER DESIRE ]
What Stalker tells me from the title is that ANYONE who has a belief and wants to convince someone else of the way of thinking, is a stalker.
1) Jesus is a stalker
2) Satan is a stalker
3) the believers of both Christ and Satan (Christians and Satanists) are stalkers.
4) anyone who follows you around surreptiously (hoping you don’t notice) is a stalker.
The larger picture of the film is that the guide and the two followers are either seeking the wrong thing and the guide is leading them towards an end that is not what they want (likely), the guide is leading them towards somethiing that will be to them what they want, toying with them, the guide is showing them something that they reject now because it seems unfathomable is real but repeatedly rejected; the guide is a true-believer who wants to guide other people to the same belief they have, whether Christian, Muslim or Anything.
After the 2h52m many things occurred:
The room – heaven – can’t deliver their desires. It’s a fable. It’s a concoction made between a scientist and a writer with a desire to create the destiny that they want for themselves.
It’s not what the Christian God offers. I don’t know which religion offers that.
Satan, or who Satan is in any other religion, always offers people what they want, when they’re emotional, desperate and exhausted.
The Stalker reveals this while pointing towards a true saviour. The true saviour is within reach at times and so distant at other times.
The Stalker can be the guide towards safety, the guide towards fulfilling all desires, the guide to show them that none of it can be believed, or the guide that shows there are extremes which are very, very bad and very, very good.
Stalker offers a guide to something of value, something that confirms life’s worthlessness or something that makes you a ‘boot’.
If you’re the boot when you’re playing Monopoly, then you’re the boot. Your fate is in the throw of the die… Appropriate…
