Stalker1979
Paired by the Criterion Channel, both picked by RaMell Ross in the Criterion Closet, both on Hlynur Pálmason’s Top 10, both directed by Andrei Tarkovsky, and both starring Anatoliy Solonitsyn
- Criterion Collection
- Spine №1084
- Connections
- View Connections
Synopsis
A subtly ravishing passage through the halls of time and memory, this sublime reflection on twentieth-century Russian history by Andrei Tarkovsky (STALKER) is as much a poem composed in images, or a hypnagogic hallucination, as it is a work of cinema. In a richly textured collage of varying film stocks and newsreel footage, the recollections of a dying poet flash before our eyes, his dreams mingling with scenes of childhood, wartime, and marriage, all imbued with the mystical power of a trance. Largely dismissed by Soviet critics on its release because of its elusive narrative structure, MIRROR has since taken its place as one of the director’s most renowned and influential works, a stunning personal statement from an artist transmitting his innermost thoughts and feelings directly from psyche to screen.
