Stalker (1979)

Сталкер
Feature Film | Sci-fi | USSR | Russian | 2h43m
Dir: Andrei Tarkovsky | Scr: Arkadi Strugatsky & Boris Strugatsky | Novel: Arkadi Strugatsky & Boris Strugatsky | Ph: Aleksandr Kajdanovsky | Prod: Aleksandra Demidova | Mus: Eduard Artemyev | Ed: Lyudmila Feiginova | PD: Andrei Tarkovsky | Snd: Vladimir Sharun | Cast: Aleksandr Kajdanovsky, Anatoli Solonitsyn, Nikolai Grinko, Alisa Frejndlikh, Natasha Abramova

In this masterful piece of contemplative science-fiction, The Stalker takes The Writer and The Professor on a hazardous and illegal journey through The Zone to The Room – a place in which all those that enter, should they be deemed worthy, have their deepest desires realised – but finds their faith wanting. Kajdanovsky’s quietly devastating central performance and Tarkovsky’s meditative direction, bringing life to the Strugatsky brothers’ alluringly melancholy writing, combine to transcendent effect.