World Issues and Stalker.

     I've been sat here in front of this computer thinking. I intended to write about the state of the world we live in. About celebrity worship. How celebrities are now becoming politicians and politicians are becoming celebrities. How overhyped empty stories about celebrity weddings and break ups have been given so much weight and importance they now overshadow vital world news. (I'm sure there was a devastating earthquake in Haiti recently...wasn't there?)
      I was gonna talk about the dumbing down of music and movies but that's nothing new. It's simply happening on a grander scale now. Thanks a lot George Lucas, James Cameron and reality television.
     I was gonna talk about the continuing reduction of human rights in the guise of national security and terrorist threats and the state of children today and the pope once again spewing hate on minorities and the precarious environmental state in which our world lies. About the damage political correctness has done to our society and blaw blaw blaw. But surely everyone already knows this? Or at least anyone who: can read/owns a television/or leaves the house.
     The world is a cesspit. A sewer. A wasteland. And people write about it all the time, ram it down our throats. And some people ignore it, and some despair, and others just don't care anymore. Either way, writing about it is becoming pointless,so I'm gonna stop.
     Thinking about this shit isn't doing me any good. Emotionally or physically. You want my advice: be media savvy, learn how to tell the truth from the lies, and turn off the goddamn news. That shit definately ain't doing anybody any good.
     Get outside, go for a walk. Appreciate the little moments. Now that I'm done not talking about the state of the world...
     I wanna tell ya about this great film I watched last night. A masterpiece by the late great Andrei Tarkovsky called Stalker, from 1979. It's an epic philosophical, existential, science fiction story set in an unknown time in an unnamed place in Russia. An industrial wasteland. All broken buildings and ruined earth, abandoned machines and pools of stagnant water, and fog and smoke everywhere. A good portion of the film is in black and white and looks absolutely gorgeous. It genuinely took my breath away when the film faded into the opening scene. Has a delapidated russian bar ever looked so good?
     The story goes like this: at some point a meteor has crashed to earth and somehow created an area called The Zone. In this zone is a room that can make your most secret wishes and desires come true. No one really knows what's real and what's not regarding the zone, the government initially sent in a group of soldiers to explore the area but they never returned. So they sent the police to fortify the area and build a fence around the zone to keep everyone out. We find out though that there are certain individuals called Stalkers who can safely enter and exit the mysterious Zone.
      The film opens in the house of one such Stalker, a man who gets paid to take people into the Zone, and to the room that grants your inner wishes. Through the course of the film we follow him as he meets two men, a writer and a scientist, leads them into the zone and guides them to the room. The film, up to the point the men enter the Zone is filmed in black and white, it switches to colour the moment they enter the Zone. The area outside the Zone seems to be made up entirely of abandoned factories, burned out automobiles, and dead streets. Inside the Zone we are shown glimpses of this world but most of it has been overgrown with grass and trees. We are told the path to the secret room is a perilous one. That they must navigate a kind of labyrinth and that failure to follow the Stalkers instructions will have grave consequences.
      Because of the locations Tarkovsky uses, his startling use of both black and white and colour, the long slow(often ten to fifteen minutes at a time) tracking shots, minimal dialogue and sparse music, combine with the lack of action on screen to create a film of mesmerizing intensity and beauty. We follow the characters through this empty dying world. A place that feels like some kind of purgatory. A world that is simultaneously a dream and a nightmare.
      Stalker is an allegory for mankinds dying wonder and growing cynicism. We see this mostly in the actions of the writer and the scientist(the intellectuals). The stalker, described as a dirty louse, a nobody, we learn is the one who truly cares.Who believes. And who is genuinely horrified by the actions of those around him.
      This is the third film I've seen now by Andrei Tarkovsky. Ivan's Childhood and Solaris being the other two, and he truly is one of the great directors in the history of cinema. A visionary genius and master of his craft. He effortlessly mixed reality and dreams, conjuring beautiful heartbreaking images, creating films that challenge the viewer, that question our world and our civilization, films that question memories and love, and ultimately films that transcend the medium entirely.