IMDb #207 Review: Stalker (1979)

Source: Wikipedia

A writer, a professor, and the titular Stalker venture into the Zone, a mysterious quarantined location like the Chernobyl disaster area except afflicted with *space magic*. The Zone allegedly grants wishes, such as colorizing grainy black-and-white Soviet Russia like a depressing communist Oz.

So as the nameless characters putz around the grim natural beauty, the Stalker, a glorified tour guide, rambles vaguely about human desire and the supernatural whims of the Zone. The job benefits must be great, because he never explains anything outright. Especially not why this poor sad man makes shitty money taking inquisitive idiots into space magic land to support his shrewish wife and physically disabled daughter Monkey.

Anyway.

Weird shit happens in the Zone. Time and space warp. Traps, marked with dangling bandages, dog them every step of the way. Then an actual dog starts following them. A telephone rings.

Meanwhile, these walking philosophical archetypes drop random Biblical references: Daniel’s writing on the wall, Revelation’s apocalypse, the road to Emmaus.

Sound thrilling? This plot progresses at the pace of a mentally challenged slug. Strewn in the slug’s slimy path are lingering environmental shots, whole minutes of silence, abstract conversation, and withering anticlimax. There are no gunfights, no spiffy special effects, no explosions (well, almost one).

Chekhov’s gun remains on the mantlepiece, discussed in excruciating detail from multiple ideological angles, but never fired. As you can imagine, a pall of weary futility hangs over everything.

But the mood, the setting, the indirect world-building? Mesmerizing.

This plodding philosophical excursion is probably better viewed alone, not a party setting. Or you might have to answer unanswerable questions. Such as,“What the hell was that?”

IMDb #248 Review: Solaris (1972)

Source: Wikipedia

A gloomy Russian cosmonaut investigates phenomena aboard a space station orbiting a sentient planet—eventually. This is an Andrei Tarkovsky film. I believe his name translates to “Tester of Patience” and “MOOOORE slow-panning environmental shots!”

So yes, crazy shit’s going down at an exoplanet (inexplicably named after our Sun) out in god-knows-where space. But first, let’s have a long, dispassionate conversation about it. “Tell don’t show” seems to be the rule when showing would be obscenely expensive. Also, let’s watch five solid minutes of silent driving. That’ll teach the critics.

After a hand-waved interplanetary commute, our deadpan intrepid hero ventures into the metal Frisbee, whose interior resembles an abandoned City of the Future from an old-school World's Fair.

It's also criminally understaffed. There’s a crazy guy who's locked himself in the lab; another guy who "killed himself" and left a rambling suicide video; and a paranoid doctor who's horrible at hiding secrets. (Yeah, turns out the sea's alive, so we just blasted it with X-rays. That cool?)

Then the “Visitors” arrive.

Because of *insert pseudoscience technobabble explanation*, the conscious Ocean attempts communication with the humans via human beings plucked from their memories. Our hero sees his dead wife. She starts asking existential questions. Unconventional romance ensues.

You've just read the grievously abridged version. Imagine a cosmic horror story; now replace the horror with angsty romance and trippy dream sequences.

We haven't even touched the philosophical discussions--dissertations on love, identity, reality and illusion, but mostly the human arrogance of  indiscriminately enforcing our culture on the universe.

Not exactly a popcorn flick. A more exotic dish with an odd flavor meant for savoring, not appeasing the appetite or nourishing the body.

Actually, this movie's mere existence serves demonstrates that speculative fiction was alive and well in Soviet Russia, just waaaaaay out there on some bizarre planet whizzing around a nameless star.

169 minutes.