Stalker (1979)

Published: June 29, 2020, 2:55 p.m.

Stalker is a 1979 Soviet science fiction art film directed by Andrei Tarkovsky with a screenplay written by Boris and Arkady Strugatsky, loosely based on their 1972 novel Roadside Picnic. The film combines elements of science fiction with dramatic philosophical and psychological themes.

The film tells the story of an expedition led by a figure known as the "Stalker" (Alexander Kaidanovsky), who takes his two clients—a melancholic writer (Anatoly Solonitsyn) seeking inspiration, and a professor (Nikolai Grinko) seeking scientific discovery—to a mysterious restricted site known simply as the "Zone", where there supposedly exists a room which grants a person's innermost desires. The trio travel through unnerving areas filled with the debris of modern society while engaging in many arguments