A film that requires several viewings. A lot has been written about 'Stalker'. I believe it to be an art work produced of genius. It can be watched again and again - with new depths revealing themselves every time.
"The key moment in Stalker was what comes after the group's realisation that the room does not grant you what you want or plan or even need, but what your heart truly desires. The Writer never enters the Room, as his lack of inspiration is just a symptom of his lack of self-knowledge - he can't know what he wants. The Professor never enters, and dismantles the bomb - if the Room truly does grant you your desire and his deepest desire was to destroy the Room, the bomb is actually redundant. Not one of them enters the Room because they are afraid of what their true desire is. And yet, thanks to going through this process of realisation, all three men arguably end up with exactly what they wanted. The Writer understands he was lacking inspiration because he didn't understand himself; he leaves with both inspiration and understanding. The Professor said he wanted to understand the Zone but planned to prevent its misuse by evil men; he leaves knowing it is beyond the whims of evil men, and with some understanding of what the Zone truly is. The Stalker wants to take people to the Zone but laments that people have lost the belief for traversing the Zone and living good lives; three men have safely navigated to the heart of the Zone and back again, and all three have a belief in something beyond them as a result.
The Professor and the bomb literalise that thought - you get what you truly desire from the Room, but you do so from the act of reaching and understanding it. Entering the Room is redundant - and as the bomb is thrown away unused, so the Room is never used and even goes unseen.
Understanding ourselves is the most powerful thing we have at our sole disposal. So many films, political plans, news angles here are about creating a narrative that suits, and so few challenge the necessity of it. Even when a story is about finding yourself in a narrative you don't control, it is almost always about seizing the narrative for yourself, or finding comfort within it. We are directed to fight the narratives that surround us on their grounds of greatest strength, and told that the correct victory is the one that leaves a narrative redirected but ultimately still in place. Stalker felt important to me as one of the few stories that tells you that you can exist outside of these narratives, so long as you are willing to abandon your narrative of self first. If you understand yourself you don't need to tell stories about yourself to fill that gap, and you find the gulf between you and the narratives that would drag you in is suddenly visible, so visible you don't know why you didn't see it before." (from a comment on the YouTube site by UreasonableOpinions.
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