Stalker
by Dylan Mangan
It’s mid-October, almost 11pm. A friend and I are rushing to make the last train home, our dazed state not induced by the alcohol we as students are obliged to drink, but by the film we have just experienced – and I say experienced for a reason.
The room in which we watched Stalker was cold, the independent 'cinema' had no money for heating. You could see your breath while the lights were on. Rows of rescued chairs and dilapidated loungers lined a hall which hadn’t aged since the 70’s at least. An obviously experienced couple in the row behind us had a blanket, of which I was jealous.
We didn’t know anything about the film we were going to see, not much anyway. My friend suggested going to see it because some of the shots he saw on the event’s Facebook page “looked pretty" and I agreed because it was either that or go home. I knew it was Russian. Before it began, the projectionist spoke about the film, saying that words couldn’t quite describe it. “Why bother telling us so?” I wanted to say. But he was right, they can’t.
The lights came down and we were greeted with short, unsubtitled opening credits. Russian doesn’t have the most welcoming of alphabets, especially to somewhat bleary eyes, but what followed redeemed this bewilderment. It did so by throwing even more confusion at us, but it was wrapped in beauty, cushioned with art, blanketed with images our impressionable, ‘artsy’ minds welcomed with open arms. We were mesmerised.
It would be remiss of me to go any further without explaining the premise of Stalker. IMDB’s synopsis reads “A guide leads two men through an area known as the Zone to find a room that grants wishes.” That’s it. The simplicity of the setup allows director Andrei Tarkvosky to seduce you, to pull you into the Zone, to explore philosophical and psychological themes that you will never really understand. It doesn’t matter that what he’s saying is a mystery, because the way he says it is meaningful enough. The camera floats around the Zone and you with it.
Stalker is a long film. They even had an intermission. This gave us a chance to catch our breath, or more accurately to untangle our brains. The cold didn’t matter anymore, that couples’ blanket no longer the object of my desire. My friend went to the bathroom, I sat alone. A few people left for well earned cigarettes. The room was silent, nobody wanted to break the spell. The lights remained down for the ten long minutes, the screen teasing us as it flickered: “INTERMISSION”. My friend returned, the film started again, and the next hour and a half passed in the haziest blur.
This brings us back to that brisk walk-cum-stumble to the train. My friend spoke all the way there, words clamouring over one another in a race to escape from his mouth. He asked what it all meant. I had no idea but the more we talked, the more I realised I wasn’t supposed to know. Stalker was in that moment our love for cinema, unexplainable and, in our minds at least, totally justifiable. I sat on the train staring out the window, the cold beginning to return to my body as the haze began to lift. I was in love with a film.
Stalker is now my personal cinematic souvenir. 7 years have passed since I sat agog, and in that time I’ve become naturally more cynical than my 18 year old self was. Had I not seen the film until this year or last, I doubt my reaction would be the same. When people talk about a love for cinema, I hope this is what they mean.
All of my favourite films I’ve seen multiple times. Part of loving a film is rewatching it, sitting with it, finding new meaning in the smallest of details. I’ve only watched Stalker once, and I don’t know if I want to again. The idea of tarnishing that night is not a welcome one. The film is on YouTube, I could watch it all from the comfort of my bed, but that would ruin the memory. Stalker is my one night stand, my summer of love. To revisit it would be disrespectful somehow. So I sit and write about having seen it, not about the film because I’m not smart enough to do so, I’m not sure anyone is.
