Today, as I settled in to write the next post for TSotD, I found that I couldn’t get an idea for a review out of my head. Last night I finished watching a movie I had checked out from the library. The title of this movie should be familiar to many of us gamers, and with good reason. The movie is Stalker (1978). This movie was inspired by the novella A Road Side Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky. Stalker the movie was also a source of inspiration for the game S.T.A.L.K.E.R. While I have not read the novel, the film and the game share only surface qualities and themes.

Stalker begins with the titular character, “known only as Stalker,” in bed with his wife and daughter. The picture painted here is in black and white. It’s the interior of a shabby apartment room with a massive central bed in which the family sleeps. Stalker is on one edge of the bed and his wife and daughter are asleep at the opposite edge. He is looking over at them, nearly expressionless. Stalker rises from the bed, dresses, and leaves the bed room. His wife wakes and follows him into the other room. They argue. In this scene the major setting of the film is introduced, The Zone. Stalker is going there and his wife pleases for him not to go. Stalker leaves to meet with two men he will lead through the Zone; his wife throwing herself to the flood in a fit of tears and anger. This is the introduction to Stalker and the tone set is WILDLY different from the games.

To date, there are three games in the STALKER series. Each game is played from the perspective of a person who has a different role in The Zone. The Zone in these games is a wildly supernatural place. Fields burn perpetually with fire, lightning dances across concrete floors or floats along through the air, monsters prowl every shadowy corner and humans wander the interior of the zone seeking wealth and fulfillment of their innermost desires. Well, the game holds that last part true from the film and novella.

The Zone in both game and film is a place of danger. Both have been surrounded by fences and barbed wire and both met with a failed military expedition. The difference between the film and game is that of how the danger manifests. In the game, the dangers are shown and the player can wander into them and experience the consequences. In the film, there are almost no special effects. The Zone’s danger is discussed between the main characters and manifests in subtle ways that are shown in the expressions of the Stalker. The film is not about a crazy science fiction world filled with mutants and secretive organizations. It is a journey.

A journey through what you ask? By God, I wish I could explain this film in a way that would make everyone go out and find a copy to watch, but I can’t. This film is a journey through the intentions, desires and ultimately the failings of the human soul. This film uses The Zone and the three men traveling through it as a crucible for evoking philosophical discussion. This movie is a somber, existential journey shot with incredible artistic care and intention. It is slow, it is long (163 min), and the Russian cultural influence might make things hard to understand at times, but this movie is so… so… worth the time. This is one of those films where you will see what happened, hear what was said, and watch how it ended and you will do something most movies these days can’t dream of making you do. You will think, a lot.