Problem number two is that the symbolism used by Tarkovsky very frequently has no emotional effect. Consider, for example, the scene in which Writer takes a crown of thorns which conveniently happened to be lying on the floor of the room he was in, says "I will not forgive you," and puts it on his head. First, this is too blatant, too dependent on the reference, to produce a great emotional reaction in the viewer. Second, the cynical, occasionally vulgar Writer is in no way like Christ. Nor is he that great an opposite of Christ, since he isn't particularly evil or demonic, either. The figure of Christ is irrelevant to his character, so the comparison can't really be made literally or ironically. Why, then, show him as Christ?

Several times in this film, Tarkovsky shows a body of water with various objects floating in it. These include guns, books and religious icons. Now, Tarkovsky always liked to fill space with objects in order to induce a sort of organic or realistic atmosphere. For example, in his film Solaris, he filled the rooms of the cosmonauts with books, vases, ashes, and other objects. But in that film, it served to make the cosmonauts seem more like people, to give them outside interests, to maybe show their intellectual lives a little. Putting icons, books and guns into a river, on the other hand, accomplishes no such thing. Similarly gratuitous and unexplained is the image of Stalker throwing bolts tied to bandages in order to find the "correct" path through the ZONE. Regarding this, I recall an unintentionally funny quote said by some intellectual while viewing those scenes - "That's _exactly_ what life is like in the Soviet Union!" Indubitably!

Another thing Tarkovsky likes to do is quote things. Here, passages are read out of the Bible, and poetry is quoted on two occasions. The problem is that scenes from the Apocalypse don't seem too relevant to the rest stop of the film's characters in a peaceful landscape. But even when these quotes are applicable to the situation depicted on the screen, they don't work - for example, a passionate love poem, designed to show the love Stalker's wife feels for her husband, is recited in a completely flat, droning monotone, devoid of feeling or even volume, that saps it of absolutely all of its vitality and fire and makes it tedious to listen to.

Problem number three is the central philosophical conceit. Tarkovsky's big films (Andrei Rublev, Solaris and Stalker) are united in their borderline contempt of science and love of religion. The underlying message eventually comes down to the notion that one has to believe in god because otherwise one will never find happiness or achieve self-actualization. Of the three films, however, Stalker is by far the preachiest. Those who believed the talk about Stalker being a "science-fiction epic" should beware, since the science-fiction framework is used primarily to create analogies to religion. Here, god is represented by the magical Room at the heart of the Eden-like ZONE, from which people have been expelled. Writer and Scientist are the two unbelievers, whose lives are naturally vapid and meaningless due to their lack of belief. Scientist, as expected, is the worse of the two - he goes to the ZONE out of a desire to exact petty vengeance on a colleague, and wishes to destroy the ZONE - but both are fairly disagreeable. Stalker is the holy fool who believes in the magical powers of the Room and has a purpose in life. The unbelievers preach their nihilistic atheism to him, claiming that there is really no ZONE or Room, and depart to finish their meaningless and vapid lives. Stalker is filled with righteous anger at their lack of faith. Then the director steps in and shows Stalker's invalid daughter moving objects using telekinesis, thus showing that the ZONE is not a fiction after all. So Stalker is proven right and everyone else is proven wrong, because Tarkovsky said so. The debate is thus reduced to asking if there is a god with the premise that there is, and asking if one should believe in god with the premise that one will be unhappy and bitter if one does not. Well, then.

To say the characters are unsympathetic is to miss the point, since the characters as people are unimportant - they are allegorical constructs used to advance the central philosophical conceit. Those who already adhere to this conceit will probably find something to like about this film, although I don't know if all of them will like sitting through all of it. Serious cinema scholars will doubtless have to see it once, due to the reputation Tarkovsky's work has accrued, but by doing so, they will be heading down a road where entertainment is the enemy, sermons fill the air, and accessibility lies dead on the wayside. I won't deride this film by calling it "pointless," because Tarkovsky clearly had a point in mind, but I honestly do not see how it can be called a masterwork.