YMMV / Stalker (1979)

• Awesome Music:
  • The Main Theme by Eduard Artemyev.
  • The Train.
  • "Bolero" by Maurice Ravel
  • "Ode to Joy" at the end.
• Broken Base: Much like many other entries in Tarkovsky's filmography, his Leave the Camera Running trademark tends to divide people till this day, as it did when the movie first came out. Even though the movie is widely praised for its smart and thought-provoking story that manages to be free of pretentiousness at the same time, the way some shots go on for a couple of minutes seemingly without providing the audience with any new information regarding the characters or the setting has been interpreted by some as Padding. They argue that getting rid of those would have made Stalker fit rather nicely within a two-hour runtime, not losing any of what makes it interesting in the process. On the other hand, there are those who like the slow pacing because of the calming, cerebral tone it gives the film.
• Faux Symbolism: According to Word of God, a black hound is just a black hound.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Stalker's wife describes his crippled daughter as "a gift from The Zone." The locations for the outdoor scenes were heavily polluted, and several people on the crew suffered illnesses and untimely deaths.
  • The Soviet Union would soon have an area like the Zone for real: Chernobyl. That didn't escape some video game developers' minds.
• Moment of Awesome:
  • Having dodged the security forces, our heroes treat us to five minute-long studies of the backs of each other's heads as they ride a motorized draisine into The Zone.
  • The train sequence is also a Moment of Awesome for some, accompanied by Awesome Music.
  • The sound effect of the train clacking along the rails blends seamlessly into the music.
• The Woobie: Stalker bemoans the lack of 'magic' in the modern world, gets upset when people fail to pay The Zone appropriate respect, and generally walks around halfway between panicky tears and childish stroppiness.

---