Anyone who’s allowed me to pick out a movie to watch (or who has talked about movies in general, really) will be aware that my tastes tend toward the “odd.”’ David Lynch? He’s a genius. The Coen brothers? Amazing. Terry Gilliam? Pretty dang good. None of the films from these directors are weird in quite the way that Andrei Tarkovsky’s Stalker is weird, though, and I think I may be adding a director to my list.

Stalker is the story of the “Zone,” an anomalous location in an industrial region of an unnamed country. It seems that some years ago, an event took place there causing the region to become depopulated and dangerous. There are rumors of prizes worth the risk of braving the police cordons and the unknown dangers of the Zone itself, and so people brave them. This is the central (and only) conceit of the movie.

Some of my readers may immediately make the connection to Chernobyl. This is the definitive ruined landscape of the modern world: poisoned irrevocably and invisibly, with access strictly controlled. The movie was made in 1979, but the resemblance to the real event is obvious.

In any case, the movie follows the adventure of a guide to the Zone—a “stalker”, which is used in English even within the spoken Russian dialogue—and his clients, a washed-up writer and a scientist. Unlike many reviews, I am going to try to avoid spoilers; I know that most of the people reading this haven’t seen the movie, and I think being spoiled beforehand about the events of the plot is particularly dangerous here. In light of that, I’m going to skip the “meat” of the movie with two words: it’s good. The cinematography and directing bear further examination, though.

This is not a realistic movie. The acting is good but often feels artificial, and much of the movie is dedicated to symbolism of action and visuals. The world outside the Zone is filmed in sepia-tinted monochrome, with many details lost in shadow and with a disconcerting unreality of texture. The Zone itself, on the other hand, is presented in color, emphasizing the lush green of the vegetation and the rich, eerie coloration of the overgrown industrial wasteland which comprises most of its landscape. Many of the shots in the film are long, almost uncomfortably so; from comments elsewhere I gather that this is a common trait of Tarkovsky’s films. One shot I found particularly memorable was a simple tracking shot across several submerged objects in an apocalyptically polluted river. The sequence is almost poetic in its simplicity.

You may have gathered that this isn’t an action-filled movie. If you begin watching Stalker expecting to see something akin to Hollywood’s I, Robot and I Am Legend, you will be disappointed. This is a slow-paced, meditative film concerned primarily with psychology and spirituality. It’s excellent.