I’ve seen it about 3 times. First time, I was in my late teens, borrowed from video store because the box art was flashy and said it was a great post-apocalyptic vision like Blade Runner.

Boy did they LIE!! Stalker was a boring, slow as slugs film that was nothing like Blade Runner. At all! Just three guys wandering a field, looking at rusty objects and make-believing there is something dangerous or mystical afoot. Nope. Just fluffy clouds and random weeds. I kid you not. It annoyed me to be so deceived and taught me a lesson about commercialism.

That said, I still detected something uncanny in Tarkovsky’s style. I’ve since watched more of his films and even revisited Stalker. I do wonder what the original film looked like, not this total reshoot that really forces the viewer to mentally imagine things that aren’t there and that the actors don’t really convey. But that’s Russian cinema for you.

For what it’s worth, I do like Nostalghia a lot. Solaris was good, too.