MOSFILM
Second Artists' Association
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ALISSA FREINDLIKH
ALEXANDER KAIDANOVSKY
ANATOLY SOLONITSYN
NIKOLAI GRINKO
in
STALKER
Screenplay by Arkady STRUGATSKY and Boris STRUGATSKY
based upon the story "Roadside Picnic"
Directed by Andrei TARKOVSKY
Director of Photography Alexander KNYAZHlNSKY
Production Designer Andrei TARKOVSKY
Music by Eduard ARTEMYEV
Director L. TARKOVSKAYA
Verses by F.I. TlUTCHEV Ar.A. TARKOVSKY
Sound by V. SHARUN Conductor E. KHACHATURYAN
English Subtitles by T. Kameneva
STALKER
"What was it? A meteorite?
A visit of inhabitants of the cosmic abyss?
One way or another, our small country
has seen the birth of a miracle - the Zone.
We immediately sent troops there.
They haven't come back.
Then we surrounded the Zone with police cordons...
Perhaps, that was the right thing to do. Though, I don't know... "
From an interview with Nobel Prize winner, Professor Wallace.
Why did you take my watch?
Where are you going, I'm asking you?
You gave me your word and I believed you.
All right, you're not thinking about yourself, but what about us?
Did you think about your child?
She's just getting used to you, and you start it again!
You've made an old woman of me. You've ruined my life.
Not so loud, you'll wake up Monkey.
I can't wait for you forever. I'm going to die!
You wanted to start working!
You've been promised a normal human work!
I'll be back soon.
You'll be back to prison!
Though this time you'll get ten years, not five!
And for ten years you will have neither your Zone, nor anything!
And I'll be dead in the meantime.
Oh God, for me it's prison everywhere!
- Let me go! - No!
Let go, I said!
Go! And may you rot there!
Be damned the day when I met you, bastard!
God himself has cursed you by giving you this child!
And me too, because of you, jerk!
My dear, our world is hopelessly boring.
Therefore, there can be no telepathy, or apparitions, or flying saucers,
nothing like that.
The world is ruled by cast-iron laws, and it's insufferably boring.
Alas, those laws are never violated.
They don't know how to be violated.
So don't even hope for a UFO, that would have been too interesting.
And how about the Bermuda Triangle? You're not going to deny...
I am. There is no Bermuda Triangle.
There's only Triangle ABC that equals Triangle A-prim, B-prim, C-prim.
Do you feel the boredom contained in this assertion?
To live in the Middle Ages was interesting.
Every home had its house-spirit, and every church had its God.
People were young! Now every fourth is an old person.
It's so boring, my angel.
But you said that the Zone
was the product of a superior civilization...
It must be boring, too, all those laws, triangles,
and no house spirits, and no God, that's for certain.
Because if God is also a triangle,
then I don't know what to think.
It's for me! Great!
Goodbye, my dear friend.
This lady was so kind as to agree to go with us to the Zone.
She's a very courageous woman. Her name is...
I beg your pardon, your name is..?
Are you really a stalker?
Wait... I'll explain everything.
Go...
What a cretin!
You did get drunk after all.
Me? What do you mean?
I had a drink, like one half of the population does.
The other half gets drunk. Including women and children.
I just had a drink though.
Damn it, what a mess here.
Go on, drink. We've got time.
How about a glass for the road?
What do you think?
Take it away.
I see. Dry law. Alcoholism is a scourge of mankind.
All right, we'll drink beer.
Is he with us?
Never mind, he'll sober up. He needs to go there, too.
Are you really a professor?
If you don't mind.
Then let me introduce myself. My name is...
Your name is Writer.
Well. And what is my name?
Yours? Professor.
I see. I'm a writer,
so, naturally, everyone calls me Writer for some reason.
- And what do you write about? - About the readers.
Obviously, there's nothing else one should write about.
One should write about nothing at all.
And what are you? A chemist?
A physicist rather.
That must be boring, too. Searching for the truth.
It's hiding and you keep searching for it.
You dig in one place - eureka! The nucleus is made of protons.
You dig in another - great!
Triangle ABC equals Triangle A-prim, B-prim, C-prim.
With me it's quite different.
While I am digging for the truth, so much happens to it
that instead of discovering the truth
I dig up a heap of, pardon... I'd better not name it.
You're lucky!
But imagine some antique pot displayed in a museum.
It was used at its time as a receptacle of food leftovers,
but now it's an object of universal admiration
for its laconic pattern and unique form.
Everyone goes oh! and ah!
And suddenly it turns out that it's not antique at all,
that some joker has palmed it off on the archeologists
just for fun.
Strange as it may seem, the admiration dies off. Those connoisseurs...
Is it what you think about all the time?
God forbid!
In fact, I don't think much. It's not good for me.
It's impossible to write, thinking all the time of success or failure.
Naturlich! But if no one is going to read me in one hundred years,
why the hell should I write at all?
Tell me, Professor, why did you let yourself be mixed up in all this?
What do you need the Zone for?
I'm a scientist in some sense.
But what do you need it for?
You're an "in" writer.
Women must be running after you in flocks.
My inspiration has been lost, Professor. I go begging for it.
Have you been used up?
What? Yes, I guess, in a way.
Do you hear it? Our train.
- Have you taken the roof off the car? - Yes, I have.
Luger, if I don't come back, call on my wife.
Damn it, I forgot to buy cigarettes.
Don't go back.
- Why? - You must not.
- You're all like this. - Like what?
Believing such nonsense.
Well, I'd better leave it for a rainy day.
Are you really a scientist?
Down!
Don't move!
Go and look, is there anyone there?
Move it, for God's sake!
There's no one there.
Go to the other exit.
Where on earth did you look, Writer?
- You didn't forget the jerry can? - No. It's full.
Everything I told you before...
is a lie. I don't give a damn about inspiration.
How would I know the right word for what I want?
How would I know that actually I don't want what I want?
Or that I actually don't want what I don't want?
They are elusive things:
the moment we name them, their meaning disappears,
melts, dissolves like a jellyfish in the sun.
My conscience wants vegetarianism to win over the world.
And my subconscious is yearning for a piece of juicy meat.
But what do I want?
World domination.
Quiet!
Why a diesel locomotive in the Zone?
It services the outpost. It won't go any farther.
They don't like going there.
Take your places! Everybody here?
The guards have arrived. Tell them to turn the TV off.
Hurry!
Go look if there's a trolley on the tracks.
What trolley?
Go back, I'll do it.
The jerry can!
Give it to me!
Get rid of your knapsack, it's hampering you.
You may travel light, if you wish, as if going for a stroll.
If someone gets hit, don't shout or rush about.
If they see you, they'll kill you.
When everything settles down, crawl back to the outpost.
They'll pick you up in the morning.
Can they catch up with us?
They fear it like the plague.
Fear what?
Here we are... home, at last.
How quiet it is.
This is the quietest place in the world. You'll see for yourselves.
So beautiful here. Not a single soul here.
What about us?
Three men can't spoil the place in one day.
Why? They can.
It's strange that flowers don't smell. Or have l...
Do you feel anything?
I feel the stench of the bog.
No, that's the river. There's a river here.
There was a flower-bed nearby, but Porcupine had trampled it down.
The smell lingered for many years though.
Why did he do it?
I don't know.
I asked him why, too.
And he said: "You'll understand later."
I think he just came to hate the Zone.
Porcupine, that's his name?
A nickname, like yours.
He had been taking people to the Zone for years, and no one could stop him.
He was my teacher. He opened my eyes.
He was called Teacher then, not Porcupine.
Then something happened to him, something broke in him.
Though I think he was punished.
Will you help me? Tie those strips of bandage to the nuts.
And l... will go for a walk.
I need to do something...
Don't go anywhere.
Where's he going?
He wants to be alone, I guess.
Why? Even with the three of us together, I feel weird.
A date with the Zone. He's a stalker.
And what does that mean?
You see, being a stalker is some sort of calling.
- I thought he'd be different. - Like what?
Well, you know, the Leather Stockings, Chingachgook sort of things...
His background is even more frightful.
Several times in prison, then he was harmed here.
He has a mutant daughter, "a victim of the Zone" as they call it.
They say she's got no legs.
And what about this Porcupine?
What does it mean, "was punished"?
Or was it just a figure of speech?
One day Porcupine returned from here
and got rich overnight.
Fabulously rich.
You call it punishment?
A week later he hanged himself.
Why?
Quiet!
What was that?
Presumably a meteorite fell down here about twenty years ago.
It had burned down the settlement.
They searched for this meteorite, but never found it, of course.
Why "of course"?
Then people began disappearing here.
They came here and never returned.
So it was concluded...
that this meteorite was not really a meteorite.
At first...
they circled the place with barbed wire to scare off the inquisitive.
All this gave rise to rumours that there's a place in the Zone...
where wishes come true.
Naturally, they began to guard the Zone like the apple of their eye.
Who knows what kind of wish someone might cherish.
What was it if not a meteorite?
I told you, no one knows.
And what do you think?
Nothing. Or anything.
A message to mankind, as one of my colleagues says.
Or a gift.
Some gift.
Why on earth would they do it?
To make us happy.
The flowers are blooming again, but they don't smell for some reason.
Sorry for leaving you two here, but it was too early to go anyway.
Did you hear it?
Maybe someone lives here?
Who?
You told me yourself
about some tourists camped here when the Zone originated.
There's no one in the Zone and there can't be.
Well, it's time.
How are we going to return?
- They don't return here. - What do you mean?
We'll go as we agreed.
I'll show the direction.
Any deviation from it is dangerous.
The first landmark is that last pole.
You go first, Professor.
Now you.
Try to follow in his footsteps.
Oh, my God! And where are...
Did they remain here like that? Those people?
Who knows.
I remember them packing at the station, getting ready to come here.
I was just a boy.
We all thought then that somebody wanted to conquer us.
You first, Professor.
Now you, Writer.
Your room is over there. We'll go this way.
Why were you hiking up the price? It's so close at hand.
Yes, but the hand has to be very long.
We don't have such a hand.
Don't! Leave it alone!
Don't touch it!
Don't touch it, I said!
Are you crazy? What's the matter with you?
It's not the place for leisurely strolls.
The Zone wants to be respected. Otherwise it will punish.
Don't you ever try it again... Have you no tongue or what?
I warned you, didn't l?
Are we to go there?
Yes. Up, enter it and to the left.
Only we are not going this way. We'll go around.
Why?
People don't go this way.
In the Zone, the longer way, the less risk.
And to go straight ahead is fatal?
He told you it's dangerous.
- And making a detour's not dangerous? - It is. But they don't go this way.
What do I care that they don't? What if I take a chance...
Listen, what's the matter with you...
To go all the way around! When everything's so close.
Here a risk, there a risk. What the hell!
You're being very flippant about this.
I'm fed up with all those nuts and bandages.
You may do as you wish, but I'm going.
- You're insane. - It's you who are...
May l?
The wind is coming up...
Can you feel it? The grass...
All the more so.
What do you mean?
Wait!
Keep your hands off!
Professor be my witness, I didn't sent you there.
You go of your own will.
Of my own will. What else?
Nothing. Go.
God help you to be lucky.
Listen!
Should you notice something,
or just feel something,
go back at once, or...
Just don't throw iron poles at me.
Stop! Don't move!
- Why did you do it? - Why did I do what?
- Why did you stop him? - I thought it was you...
What's up? Why did you stop me?
I didn't stop you.
Who did it then? You?
Who the hell knows...
You're smart, Mister Shakespeare.
To go straight ahead is scary, to go back is embarrassing.
So you gave yourself a command. Fear has made you come to your senses.
- What? - Stop it.
- Why have you emptied the bottle? - Stop it, I said!
The Zone is a very complicated system...
of traps, and they're all deadly.
I don't know what's going on here in the absence of people,
but the moment someone shows up, everything comes into motion.
Old traps disappear and new ones emerge.
Safe spots become impassable.
Now your path is easy, now it's hopelessly involved.
That's the Zone.
It may even seem capricious.
But it is what we've made it with our condition.
It happened that people had to stop halfway and go back.
Some of them even died on the very threshold of the room.
But everything that's going on here depends not on the Zone, but on us!
So it lets the good ones pass and kills the bad ones?
I don't know.
I think it lets those pass who...
have lost all hope.
Not good or bad, but wretched people.
But even the most wretched will die if they don't know how to behave.
You have been lucky, it just warned you.
I guess I'll wait for you here
until you come back, made happy.
It's impossible!
I've got sandwiches, a thermos...
You won't last even an hour here without me.
Besides, one doesn't return here the way one comes.
Anyway, I would prefer...
Then we're going back right away.
I'll return your money minus a certain sum
for the trouble, so to speak...
Have you come to your senses, Professor?
All right. Go on, throw your nut.
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