Episode 253: Tarkovsky's Starchild

[00:00:00] Very Bad Wizards is a podcast with a philosopher, my dad, and psychologist David Pizarro having an informal discussion about issues in science and ethics. Please note that the discussion contains bad words that I'm not allowed to say and knowing my dad some very inappropriate jokes.

[00:00:17] Just sitting here thinking is pretty rough when you spend most of your life not thinking.

[00:01:11] Welcome to Very Bad Wizards. I'm Tamler Sommers from the University of Houston. Dave, for the last two years I've been convinced against all reason that I couldn't get COVID and I talked a lot of shit and it became part of how I understood myself, like what I took

[00:01:27] myself to be. But I got it last week and now I have to reconstruct a whole new identity for myself. What should it be? What should I be? Well, it's going to take a lot of soul searching. I know exactly what you're talking about.

[00:01:43] I'm a COVID version too and now I feel like you're not part of the club. I feel a little bit more distance between us. I don't blame you. I've let you down. I've let all the

[00:01:56] people who never got it down. Did it feel like a weird moral failure? Like I feel like it's just like for no reason, no good reason. It feels like a moral failure.

[00:02:04] It felt like a failure of will. I had been saying because my wife got it, my daughter got it, and I never got it. They were in my house and I just would tell people, I'm made of Sterner's

[00:02:19] stuff. And it's like, which is clearly not true when it comes to my wife anyway, and well so probably my daughter, but whatever. And then I would say that I had too strong a will to take COVID. And it all just came crashing down on me.

[00:02:37] Every once in a while, I find some reason to believe in a God who punishes that sort of hubris. The next thing that's going to happen is I'm just going to get into a bike accident

[00:02:47] and with like a head injury that the doctor for whatever reason is certain that a helmet would have prevented. You're going to be like a little monkey from a stalker. Oh man, yes. So today this is it. This is what I've been wanting for a long time.

[00:03:11] We're finally going to do an episode on Andre Tarkovsky's stalker. Not even COVID could hold you back. Not even COVID. Well, it held us back one week. So I'm very excited if a bit

[00:03:25] nervous about that. You get a particular way by the way. You do get this like nervousness about talking about your favorite stuff. Like we're going to fail at doing it in some way or

[00:03:37] another. Do you feel that way? Sometimes. I don't like anything that much. No, I yeah, but I don't think as much as you. I feel like I have faith in our abilities. You know? Oh, I'm confident, but if it doesn't go well, obviously.

[00:03:53] Here's the thing. You have to edit it. And so I feel like you have more of a sensibility to it. And I kind of trust you to polish our turns. I will try to make sense of what we end up

[00:04:06] saying. But first, we have a gem of a psychology paper from I think I first saw it from Neuroskeptic who else? Who I don't know what he does to find these things. Does he have like

[00:04:21] Google alerts for keywords or like a whole team of people? Like that's how I like to imagine it. He has like this team of people that are scouring to try to find, you know, like preprints everything, you know. So the paper is called Small Penises and Fast Cars,

[00:04:40] Evidence for a Psychological Link, and it is by researchers out of University College London in the Department of Experimental Psychology. That is obviously like a real place. It is. But it's a doozy. It's a doozy of a paper. It's a preprint. So I don't think it's been

[00:05:01] accepted for publication anywhere. And I'm going to treat this like, you know, like open science, like we're peer reviewing this for them. But as I said to you off air, this paper should be published. It should be seen and it shouldn't have to go through

[00:05:18] like the humiliation of a peer review process like nature just like accept. I really have, you know, questions about how you even start with this. But like, let me just describe the gist of it. It's a pretty simple experiment. It's one experiment.

[00:05:39] And the idea was that they wanted to see if there was a link between men feeling like they had a small dick and them liking sports cars, which is, you know, whatever. It's like the

[00:05:51] trope. They're basically studying a joke that's been around since like the 60s or something. And the way that they did it was to experimentally manipulate what they told men the average penis

[00:06:08] size was with the idea that if I tell you that the average penis size is whatever, eight inches, then on average, probably are smaller than that. So you'll feel, it will make you feel inferior and you'll like the sports car. So they would present in this study,

[00:06:26] they presented a whole bunch of facts of which one of them embedded in that was the fact about penis size. Half the people got like a way bigger than average and half the people got

[00:06:36] way smaller than average. They either felt good about their penis size or they felt terrible about their penis size. And then they were told they're going to rate products. And so they rated a whole bunch of products. So the key for their hypothesis, the key was

[00:06:48] the prediction that if they were told that penises were bigger than they actually are, they would rate the sports cars more favorably. It's exhausting. Yeah. So they have, they do a review of literature and the literature,

[00:07:06] it's all about sexual selection stuff like Trevor stuff basically arguing that men go the route of conspicuous consumption to attract females, especially for short-term mating goals and to compensate if they have low self-esteem.

[00:07:22] And so I love this, so that they do a review and then this paragraph. How does penis size fit into this theoretical picture? The hypothesis would be that males who feel poorly endowed associate that with being less attractive to females, they would seek to compensate for

[00:07:36] their disadvantaged primary sexual characteristic with an increased show of secondary sexual characteristics that conspicuous consumption of a sports car. We tested this hypothesis with an experimental manipulation. First of all, I don't know if they're being cheeky, but a sports car

[00:07:52] is not a secondary sexual care. I don't know what they're talking about. It's just weird. It's like, like I said before, it's like a stale joke turned into a hypothesis like involving evolutionary psychology, which is, which I also, you know, they also had a

[00:08:08] bunch of other product ratings, including luxury items like Rolex watches and stuff. And they really don't give any reason why this shouldn't work for other luxury goods. Presumably, you know, they talk about the peacock and it's, and it's like fancy tail feathers.

[00:08:24] And it's like what in like humans? It's just the specific effect of a sports car, which leads me to my big problem with the paper, which I don't believe the finding because

[00:08:35] not only is it only an effect for penis size on sports cars and they have other low self-esteem manipulations and other luxury goods, they don't get any effect there. But it's also completely

[00:08:50] split up by age in order to find the effect in a way that's just all right. Like, you know, they were just looking to see how they get. So they split men into like 29 and under and

[00:09:01] whatever, and older than 29, which is always a red flag. Like unless that shit is pre-registered, it's just like why 29? Like why split in half? Like they're just sort of fishing for it. So

[00:09:11] they show that like this only works for older men but not for younger men again with no good reason. So you're accusing them of peaking. I am accusing them of peaking. But why are they doing it? Like I just don't understand why, why do this?

[00:09:25] I feel like this is something you do and a lot of psychologists do is you have a paper here with like so many fundamental problems that suggest that your whole discipline is like unserious and yet you pick something that's fairly, you know, like that's right. That's

[00:09:43] absolutely right but doesn't get to the bottom of how about this? The measure for whether you think you have a big penis or not is that you read this random fact and then I guess in

[00:09:57] their mind you're thinking, wait a minute, like I've measured my penis and my penis is smaller than that or bigger than that. And like that makes you now think for the first time, like I have

[00:10:12] this sized penis. I might, you know, have been under a misapprehension about my penis size. Like I don't think that's how it works. Number one, I don't know how you would validate

[00:10:23] that measure. Well, so what they, they at least asked people later on to estimate their own penis size and they found that people who were told that it was bigger said that they were bigger.

[00:10:40] So that doesn't get to your head. I mean, I feel like what? I don't think this gets to the end. It does, but here, but let's be, to be fair, any psychologist would say all of the

[00:10:49] things that you said. It's just that this is the lowest hanging fruit because if there is an effect, then you have to try to figure out why, why it's there. But what we're saying is that this is a

[00:10:57] simple conversation. There's no effect. So you don't even need to talk about like validity. No, but you do because let's say there had been an effect. That's exactly what we're saying and there isn't. Right. But I'm saying that this is part of the problem with psychology

[00:11:12] right now is you come up with these ridiculous measures that in no way are validated. I don't think that's a validation to because they have no independent measure of the person's penis

[00:11:26] size. Not only that, they have no reason to think that our sense of our penis size fluctuates over the course of our lives from something as small as tiny as this stupid manipulation. I feel like people have a good sense of where they stand penis wise and

[00:11:43] they're not like reading some piece of data about what the average is would not in any way change how big I thought my penis was. Well, look, the validation is that they want,

[00:11:56] they like sports cars more. So there you go. No, but no, look, it's like, sure, I started with the fact that there, I don't think there's an effect, which to me is just like, it's table

[00:12:07] stakes. So for a psychologist, table stakes, it's not that you have, you're like so much more clever than psychologists that we never talk about validation. Of course, if we were reviewing it, we would be like, what evidence do you have that this is validation? You're not like

[00:12:21] springing this cleverness on us. No, I'm not saying I am, but these are University College, London psychologists. It's bad in so many ways. It's just that that's the easiest way to point like objectively, like that there is there. It's like circa 2009.

[00:12:43] That terribly, that's my issue. Have they not like been paying attention to like what's happening to the field? Like this is not pre-registered. There's no real justification. It's just like, okay, here I'm going to, I'm going to yes and you a bit more than I was just doing.

[00:12:58] So here is a minimum you would think exactly what you were saying, which is like, how do you even know that this is working? And you would think that they would maybe, and I'm not saying this would satisfy anybody, but maybe they would have like a self-esteem measure

[00:13:14] to see like, oh, guess what? People who were told that pedicizes were bigger, like actually fell ourselves. But they don't have that at all. Like it's just, it's like a lark. And maybe they did ask it. This is the thing that you don't buy.

[00:13:25] Like that's where I become real suspicious. Maybe they did ask it and they just didn't report it because it didn't work. Yeah, because it wasn't pre-registered. Right. And you don't know any of that. Right. I'm not accusing them of anything.

[00:13:36] Daniel Richardson, Joseph Deva and John Hogan chucked on. But I don't think you have to know anything about data to wonder why they're confident that this manipulation does what they think it does, especially since, I mean, let me ask you this.

[00:13:52] Do you feel like you have a good sense of how big your penis is relative to the world relative to, you know? I mean, I think so, yes. But that's because like I've actually read some literature on average penis size. And you've measured your own penis?

[00:14:12] I don't think I've taken a ruler to it. But like, you know, like taking my, yeah, like I can, I could probably mark out. I would need two rulers, but you only have two intruders. Here's the other question. Like if it really did work, right?

[00:14:29] Yeah. Then I guess they get debriefed afterwards. But isn't it a little cruel? Isn't it a little like how did this pass an ethics board that you're going to make people, at least for the duration of the experiment, believe all of a sudden I have a small penis.

[00:14:45] I thought it was normal size, but apparently it's a really small. There's scar for life. There's scar for life. A little below average. No, it's true. If this really worked, then you're harming people or really helping them. Yeah, or helping them.

[00:14:59] Like half of the people are like, yeah, baby. I'm going down to the why. This is made for a very bad wizards episode from 2014. Yeah. You know what would really trip me up though?

[00:15:13] Yeah, is that they reported it in centimeters and I can't tell. I think that in the like quote unquote like facts that they presented experimentally, I think they also put it in inches experimentally, but I'll tell you this. If you tell me in centimeters, I would be fine.

[00:15:30] This has been zero to me. I had to Google like what that was. I did too. It's so sad I did too. Yeah. The average, so here, yeah, here are the exact ones. The average direct penis size is 18.04 centimeters,

[00:15:44] which is parenthetical 7.09 inches, or the average penis size is 12.04 centimeters, parenthetical 4.73 inches. So is that what happens afterwards? Like they then get debriefed there like, don't worry. This was on prohibit. I don't think anybody got any debriefing.

[00:16:01] What if you have such a small penis that even like the smaller side, that's the thing is like you don't know what their penis size is going in. No, you just hope that it's equally distributed across both groups, and that it'll work. But here's the other thing.

[00:16:18] They don't report. So they report that this worked for older men and not for younger men and they show the data and they do Bayesian analyses, which I have not qualified at all to judge. That's what's so funny. That's like is when they get really into the,

[00:16:32] they run this Bayesian analysis on the data. It's like, are you fucking getting me? We're not at the point where this is going to be in any, like that degree of precision is going to be in any way informative. Right. It really is cargo cult science.

[00:16:49] This is their description of the, they say we quantified the strength of evidence for these experimental effects using Bayesian mixed models. First, we z-scored the ratings for each participant, such that their average rating for all products was zero and the standard deviation for their ratings was one.

[00:17:06] This had the effect of removing overall individual response biases and ratings. Then we used a Bayesian mixed model with fixed effects for the penis condition and participant age, random effects for the car model and random slopes and intercepts. We used our version 3.43.

[00:17:23] The R. Starnum package and the analysis tool, Psycho, full details of the models are given in supplementary materials. This is mystification. You are mystifying just the ridiculousness of what you're doing with all this terminology and technical jargon. It is classic mystification.

[00:17:48] Anyway, I think the real question here is whether or not you should take a ruler to your erect penis? Answer the question that everyone's asking. Yeah, I would want to wait until it's really fully erect. And then I'm pretty confident that it's not a huge penis.

[00:18:08] It's not a porn star penis. But I feel like it is a perfectly fine, but I thought I wasn't going to get COVID either. So, you know? That's right. But I feel like it is a well-sized penis. Mr. COVID 3-inch dick over here.

[00:18:23] If I was going to change 100 things about myself, I would leave my penis alone. Me too. I just say I feel like I'm mature enough to feel that way. I'm not quite mature enough to not laugh at papers like this.

[00:18:38] And I hope you never will be and that I never will be. But we are mature enough to move on to a great film. Why don't we just... Man, yes. It's going to be hard to leave this paper to talk about.

[00:18:52] This is a really good juxtaposition in some ways actually. All right. We'll be right back to talk about Stalker. This episode is brought to you by a longtime sponsor, BetterHelp. You know how we feel can shape so much about how we view the world.

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[00:25:45] So thank you so much to everybody for all your questions. Everybody for all your support. We're overwhelmed by your generosity. This is what keeps us going and we can't thank you enough. Thank you. All right, let's get to the main segment. Stalker from 1979.

[00:26:07] So this is by the Russian master Tarkovsky who did seven movies including probably his most famous other ones are Solaris and Andre Rubilev and also Mirror which just got a criterion release. It was a famously troubled production, had to be completely reshot

[00:26:28] after the film was developed improperly which is just insane. It's like, you know how it used to be when you would lose a document that you've been working on and it would just be like a tragedy but this was like a year's work was just gone

[00:26:44] and so they had to reshoot it. I think probably for the better of the movie. The plot couldn't be much simpler. Three men travel into a zone that's been cordoned off by the military because of some of like unspecified events that happened there

[00:27:00] probably around 20 years ago or something like that and they are heading ultimately towards a room that according to legend grants anyone who enters it their deepest desire, the one that made them suffer the most. Dave one of my deepest desires for this podcast

[00:27:18] was to do an episode on Stalker. Like I said it's a movie I saw for the first time about two years ago. I've seen it at least six or seven times since. It's probably the movie that means the most to me

[00:27:30] even if I'm not sure why at all and I think it's like a magical movie and I do feel like it contains the meaning of life somehow but one of the many questions this movie raises is whether having your deepest desire granted is a good idea.

[00:27:48] So what do you think? Will this discussion lead me to tragedy and despair or some mysterious form of hope? I want to like put in this plug. Normally I'm like well it doesn't matter if you watch something or not you can enjoy the discussion.

[00:28:01] Like I don't want anybody to feel a resistance to watching this movie. The runtime is long and it's famously has long shots and it's slow by the standards of filmmaking today for sure. But enjoy like that just watch this with patience and enjoy it.

[00:28:19] It is some of the most beautiful filmmaking I've ever seen and so like set aside some time and just really watch this movie. I think I don't think anybody who enjoys movies can watch this movie seriously and not be moved in some way or another.

[00:28:35] And drawn into it without. Yeah there's something. Knowing why. There's a there's a Jean-Essac Qua as the French say about like what is magical about this movie. The beauty of it I think is very alluring. And the rhythm of it is very hypnotic. It's hypnotic that's right.

[00:28:55] And I remember the first time I watched it I didn't know what to make of it the first time. Like what the fuck was that? But I knew like holy shit like there's something going on in this movie and I was so excited.

[00:29:06] I watched it again the next day. Like I was just spellbound by it and I still am without again knowing what it's even about. It's hitting something. Yeah it's like hitting something like primal isn't the right word but deep.

[00:29:25] Like the art of cinema here is doing stuff that other art forms can't. Part of the what that is that art is that it hits you at a level that is below language or you know it's not something that can be fully described.

[00:29:41] You do have to see it. You have to feel it. Every time I watch it I always go for a walk afterwards and it makes me like alert to the world in a way I wasn't before I watched it. Like the textures like just the aliveness

[00:29:55] of what I'm seeing like the sounds especially the soundscape of this movie is incredible and like so then I go for a walk and the world sounds different and looks different. It's breathing in a life in a way that just it wasn't before

[00:30:11] and like that's the thing I'm most grateful that a movie can do and this movie doesn't more than any other movie for me. Yeah okay as we get into it there are things that I want to say about like what it is that's hitting those

[00:30:23] those like emotional like like you say like like outside of language core emotions but I don't know how to describe it like my high-level comment about the visuals of this movie is that it's not like you know like Denny Villeneuve like has beautiful movies that look cool

[00:30:45] like this looks cool like that but it's different it's like the way he even just films three men's faces looking at the camera is hitting you in a way that's just like I can't describe why that's emotionally intense they're just staring at you like

[00:31:02] and just a slow pan over a bed in the desk like at the beginning or over like a little pond that there are just random old objects you all of a sudden you literally feel yourself being pulled towards the screen right

[00:31:18] and unlike you know even like a David Lynch film which can be pretty abstract there's nothing that makes me want to say oh my god I gotta rewind and see what those objects are and how that like plays into you know whatever

[00:31:34] interpretation I'm playing with it's like it's not like that it's not right yeah yeah um although I did rewind to see what the objects were on the night stand I'm sure I probably like a syringe in there which there's a lot of stuff in the apartment

[00:31:51] that echoes in the zone in the zone like yeah that was one thing I noticed on a rewatch and then I was alert for this time almost to the point where you could wonder whether he ever leaves the room but yeah yeah he is a little crazy

[00:32:07] like the cuckoo clock is a great example like you know because it's the same sound as the sound you then hear in the zone the little dust particles that are falling like the syringe that yeah right yeah

[00:32:21] I'm curious about I read a little bit about the location it was filmed you that he had he had scouted a couple of different locations and finally filmed in Estonia in like an abandoned chemical like a paper factory I guess

[00:32:34] yeah um and I was reading a bit about the experience that they had during filming like it looks beautiful but apparently it was just miserable yeah and there were like toxic chemicals toxic chemicals coming in and they think

[00:32:47] that this probably killed him his wife and a lot of the crew yeah which just sucks but worth it no so we agreed that that going scene by scene probably isn't the best way to do this because there's just a lot even though

[00:33:04] there are very long shots and you know fewer shots than in most movies it's a long movie and I don't think it does service to go exactly scene by scene but we'll try to go in order and talk about

[00:33:16] like things that stood out and the first thing I wanted to talk about with you was the use of the sepia tone at the beginning so so like Tamler said this movie is about a place called The Zone that we don't know what happened

[00:33:30] you know there's some speculation about whether it was like aliens or was it a meteorite or a visitor from outer space who knows so they travel into the zone but before they do were in his apartment with his family

[00:33:42] and and even before that we're in a bar open scene just the seediest just dingiest looking bar imaginable it is like the ultimate liminal space it's like a weight it's like a purgatory waiting room exactly yeah

[00:33:58] and the bar man is yeah like the overseer of that waiting room yeah there is just from the get go there's something mystical about where they are yeah and I don't know what he did like it's a very weird sepia tone like it's super saturated cool it's beautiful

[00:34:17] but I think it's is it just trying I think he's just trying to say that when he's in the zone that's like his ultimate that that's his reality the world is but a pale shadow

[00:34:27] yes right yeah and then that also makes it interesting when it becomes sepia toned in the zone which it does during that incredible like dream dream scene and then also when it becomes color in the outside world which it does you know when they're walking home

[00:34:44] it has a wizard of Oz element in that way like this is your drab reality and then there's this other reality that's colored and and magical just in virtue of being colored and look

[00:34:59] we didn't say what the stalker was but like so the idea is that there's one guy who is I guess trained and experienced in getting into this zone that's cordoned off barbed wire military

[00:35:12] he knows how to get people into the zone and he knows how to navigate them once they're in the zone he's like their guide right and there's just two people we never learned their real

[00:35:21] names one's a writer and one's a professor of physics and they're called just writer and professor yeah they're very archetypical kinds of characters too I don't we don't know too much about the professor until the end but you know he's a real man of

[00:35:40] science and the writer is an artist and and like a cynical one you know like he's it's not just that he was representing like the artist he was representing cynical human beings

[00:35:54] and in some ways the man of science is less cynical a little bit although in some ways he's more his his rot is deeper I think than the writers at least because some guy had sex with his wife

[00:36:10] 20 years ago exactly honestly like that's at least indicated as one possible reason why yeah you know like what's driving him and motivating him because there is a question why they are going into this zone in the first place it's dangerous at least the first part of

[00:36:27] it is dangerous we don't know you know we never get confirmed or not whether the zone itself is dangerous but getting there certainly is yeah they have to avoid by her yeah yeah and complicated

[00:36:40] and yeah right the the skill of the stalker and getting them into the zone is like is obvious like they they get a car and they have to sneak around police guards and they have to like

[00:36:51] they're really risking their life so it does raise the question like if these guys are so cynical what do they want what do they want they must believe that there is something in the zone for them

[00:37:01] I mean obviously this is like the central one of the central questions of the movie what are they doing in there there's something in them that is driving them to go in there

[00:37:10] and risk risk their life I mean the writer says I've lost my inspiration I'm going to beg the zone for it but he's kind of as he often is being also ironic and making fun of himself when he says

[00:37:22] that professor are you really until the end get he doesn't volunteer any information about what's making him go through all of this so they're paying the stalker to to go like this is like

[00:37:35] the stalker's occupation and at the beginning his when he's in his apartment his wife is very upset that he's going in and I'm not exactly sure why do you have any theories about why she's so upset

[00:37:47] that he's going in well we get so little backstory but one piece of information we get is that he had been in prison for a significant period of time to the point where like he had barely met his

[00:37:59] daughter monkey and and so I think she's worried that he'll get arrested and returned to prison that's one like kind of surface explanation but I also think it's like very hard on him

[00:38:13] like he's kind of tormented by the cynicism of the writer and professor and you know you see when he comes back it takes a lot out of him yeah I think it's also why the wife loves him but

[00:38:26] you know you could see like what is their life normally this is my question you know like we don't get any real sense of whether this is a town like does anybody live here besides the

[00:38:36] bartender and what does like how does monkey and the wife and the stalker when he's not in the zone like how do they spend their days we have no real idea yeah I know it's like this beat down

[00:38:49] like one room or two room shack that they live in and at the end I guess we see that there's like you know like a power plant in the background but really we have no idea it's so dreamlike

[00:39:00] yeah it's not like they popped into existence but it is also equally hard to think of what their day-to-day is monkey can read I guess she can't walk there's uh there's yeah she has crutches and there's rumors

[00:39:18] that stalkers their children become deformed in some way right it's also weird like I try to get a sense of what is this world like you know it's not a named country that they live in

[00:39:29] and you know like does this zone that exists like do does everybody know about it like why isn't everybody trying to get in like is just like a secret like how did how did the professor and

[00:39:41] the writer find out about it and and want to go in it like are there other stalkers who lead people in like I guess we know we at least hear of one but that's it who was like and it seems like he

[00:39:50] was the guy who trained this stalker porcupine porcupine very tragic tale of porcupine it's a very strange movie in that it's it's so it's allegorical but it's very hard to feel

[00:40:04] to figure out what it's an allegory for yeah that's right it's and the answer has to be like many things and I wonder the mind of the artist of Tartofsky like this was based on a book but he

[00:40:15] departs from the book a lot like I wonder about I feel like we've had a discussion like this before where you're like if he made it just like a simple allegory like the the Christ figure

[00:40:29] sacrificing himself for a like a humanity that didn't appreciate him if it's too on the nose it's not interesting but there is the worry that like you can make it so complex or about some like have so many different angles to it that any interpretation would work

[00:40:46] yes I don't know like another example might be like 2001 but even more than that it's hard to even come up with some kind of coherent story that you want to tell like I have a lot of thoughts

[00:41:01] that I'm sure we'll get into and we'll get into yours too but I don't have any confidence that I understand the metaphorical aspect of the movie and or even that there are metaphors for

[00:41:14] anything I don't feel like I fully understand the reality of the movie but I'm not tempted to say well this part is a dream or you know like I'm not tempted in in that kind of direction either

[00:41:27] but yet it gives us enough that we're not we can't just say any old thing right yeah right it's constrained even more constrained I think than 2001 in in that it gives us a more linear story than 2001 which which could be like a rorschach you know inkblot for anybody

[00:41:48] so I want to dive into just this question that that I really want to know your answer to okay which is do you believe that the zone in fact has anything special about it because it's like

[00:41:59] you said it's ambiguous like it it's completely ambiguous even the end shot of monkey move you know supposedly moving the glasses I think you don't have to view supernaturally the same thing with once you're in the zone there are some strange things that happen

[00:42:16] like as I take it the only things that would suggest that it that there might be something supernatural going on in the zone is the voice when the writer goes to the tries to go to the room without going you know the circuitous way that nobody will at

[00:42:35] least confess to having said it just tells them to stop and turn back there's the dropping the stone down the well and that takes forever I counted 12 seconds 12 seconds yeah I guess there's also the fact that they just inexplicably decided to take a nap in like

[00:42:53] that's so weird it's so weird there's a lot of laying down on the floor in this movie a lot yeah no I know okay so so stalker obviously really believes that this place is like

[00:43:06] yeah very dangerous charge yeah and clearly like there are rules to this shit and if you don't follow them like you are in danger of dying and we wouldn't have any reason to think that

[00:43:18] people have it sounds like people have died in their journeys into the zone and we see skeletons and we see like you know apparently they sent a bunch of troops in at first

[00:43:30] and none of them came back and then they just decided to coordinate off right so so he has this like technique of guiding you through the the zone which involves a complex system of traps right that are just there like and it changes like he believes that

[00:43:50] whoever is there actually has an influence on the zone itself so like the traps aren't always in the same location or the same kind of traps so he's constantly being vigilant and like he's

[00:44:00] chastising the writer often for like veering off track and the writer clearly doesn't seem to take it that seriously I mean one of the the comic elements of the movie is that this room

[00:44:12] that will supposedly grant your deepest wish is right in front of them at the start like right and you can actually see into where they're gonna end up right there and the writer is just

[00:44:24] like this is stupid where it's right there I can just walk there and and then the writer starts doing it and you just see in his face holy shit like maybe this isn't such a good idea

[00:44:37] but yeah right so he's throwing like his method is like he has these like bolts these nuts where he ties like white strips of cloth and he throws them ahead I guess to see whether or not

[00:44:50] there's a trap of some sort or whether like the laws of nature go wonky and like in that particular spot and so he follows whatever whatever path seems bold seems safe yeah even though like

[00:45:04] you know it's pretty easy to throw this thing in the direction that you want to go to so like I know it's not like some randomly zone determined thing where it goes so the stalker throughout takes this so super seriously to the point of like hysterics

[00:45:24] yeah his voice when when he thinks the writer is going astray like his voice has this desperation to it his facial expressions have this pain to them yeah because you're not taking it seriously

[00:45:36] that's like his greatest fear is that you're not taking the zone seriously right I don't know I think my interpretation has always more gravitated towards the side that there's nothing supernatural about it and what gives it that energy is the a the fact that it's cordoned off

[00:45:55] and abandoned and like anytime you have nature and old buildings and you know water coming into places where they shouldn't be that's gonna be kind of spooky so that's number one the fact that

[00:46:08] it's been abandoned but then be the fact that nobody really knows what the fuck is going on that's what gives it its charge and energy and possibility is not that it is really supernatural

[00:46:23] but we can project our spiritual hopes onto it and it can reflect that that's I think where I gravitate towards but not with any kind of you know firmness or yeah right so uh I think I'm with

[00:46:40] you too and like the emotions of the journey are what the emotions of the people bring to it it sounds so cliche to call it a journey of self-discovery but it's like uh it's what it is

[00:46:54] yeah it really is it's like it's it's just so so allegorical in that sense like you're trying to navigate find meaning in life and this is like the microcosm of the the macrocosm that is just life

[00:47:06] in general it's not regular life that's the thing you know it's not you're not in that rut and routine and your patterns and habits it's it's something new that you don't understand

[00:47:20] and that scares you but also pulls you into it okay so here's the scene that I think convinced me that maybe there's nothing really going on that the stalker has such a strong desire to believe

[00:47:33] that that there is something supernatural um but there's no real evidence of it is when they're going through that circuitous route they lose the the professor and they make it out

[00:47:44] to what to what the stalker believes to be the other side and he's so shocked to find the professor there he's like how did you beat me and the professor just like confused like I just

[00:47:53] came back to grab my backpack that I had left here it's I was like oh he really has in his mind created this thing where he's like he really believes that the zone could fool him into thinking that

[00:48:06] this place looks exactly like the place they started but it's not in fact but it is because it is yeah they just went in this way I mean it's very hard for us as viewers to get a sense

[00:48:17] of the geography of what they do in that middle section yeah but really they're not working within a big space and so there's a lot of just going kind of back and forth and yeah it's like

[00:48:28] the Jews in the you know 40 years in the wilderness kind of how so well you know the the Jews were wandering in the wilderness to the promised land the promised land was not far away but god god uh

[00:48:41] punished punished them and made them literally just wander for 40 years um even though like you know what it like I don't know how long it is but it's you know maybe a couple of months

[00:48:50] the tops like walking yeah it is like that and you get the sense that it has to be too can't just get there and walk right into the room whether it's super naturally charged or not this

[00:49:02] is the ultimate it's about the journey not the destination because they don't go into the destination uh I guess I don't know do you have anything to say about the hysterics of the

[00:49:13] white yeah I did want to say something like she so she's very upset that he's going um that he's taking people into to the zone she she arrives on the floor in this very weird performance um yeah and

[00:49:29] she curses the day that she met him she reminds me of Job's wife you know Job's wife when he's suffering she says just curse god and die like just and she she does seem like she's never

[00:49:41] quite believed it but also I don't know that little speech at the end she might be convinced yeah the way I read her based on that speech at the end is that she may have these little episodes

[00:49:55] but ultimately this is why she's with him in the first place she loves this about him yeah because they're they're in the dreariest possible environment and somehow he's able to make life mystical and interesting yeah and interesting you know in if if you thought which I think you

[00:50:17] could think I don't think it but like that the girl was malevolent like Sophia from deadwood like the thing that she that she made the wife ride on the floor like that okay see we're

[00:50:30] this is where we're going to get to like that really I I don't think that she's malevolent but I think that she is controlling some shit like which is I Tamal I wanted to read this this

[00:50:41] movie in a completely cynical way where it's like isn't it interesting that this that this guy has this faith that has based on nothing but he's like yeah he's really just completely devoted his life

[00:50:51] to like what is essentially a lie um but I don't think Tarkovsky wants you to leave with that and and the hints about monkey having some sort of supernatural power to me like I don't even think

[00:51:04] it's ambiguous by the end and in fact I think that at the beginning shot when the glass on the nightstand starts moving and then the train comes and you think it's because the train is moving it

[00:51:16] yeah I think that might be just like a side effect the daughter is actually moving it there too but we should say that's the last shot in the in the film we should like yeah we'll get you

[00:51:26] we'll definitely get there because that's such a that's like that's how he ends it that's the star child essentially exactly version of the star of the star child it's completely not open to

[00:51:37] like even if you think she's definitely moving it with her mind it's like okay then still why end with that uh so on the subject actually as he leaves the apartment he goes through this

[00:51:50] it's just so gorgeous it's like you're living in a painting uh no I kept thinking that that YouTube channel that we used to love every frame of painting this movie really is every frame of

[00:52:01] painting there are times where you feel and the movie also just brings you in so that you're like a part of it like the way it does weird point of view shots from nobody yeah like it's

[00:52:11] like it's us at that point you know and but anyway as he's walking across this like smoky foggy uh train yard the you overhear the writer kind of pontificating as he will to the woman

[00:52:26] yeah the woman she's like this kind of dreary place's version of a society lady you know she's more well dressed than anybody but you know she still doesn't seem like she comes out of

[00:52:40] Paris and what he's doing the writer is talking about how this whole world is just you know it's like what you want it to be all purely just science and laws and geometry and ace prime there's no

[00:52:55] mystery no flying saucers yeah exactly that the middle ages were more interesting because the world was open to so much enchantment it's a really interesting scene because I kind of feel like

[00:53:09] this has got to be more or less what Tarkovsky believes yeah you know totally yeah he's also making fun of it it's getting parodied in the way that the writer is pontificating about it

[00:53:21] and and it's so clear that this is just almost like a rehearsed thing that he says to impress the sophisticated women of whatever country they live in so I really like that yeah it's like

[00:53:34] I hadn't thought about that there is another conversation about the purpose of life being the writer says it's about making art and I also think that Tarkovsky believes that and I think that him

[00:53:46] making a film like this is him bringing mystery into the world like he did yeah yes right yeah not necessarily through supernatural means although there's definitely some shots his art yeah his

[00:53:59] zone is his art and I think but then I also think the writer is in some ways what he worries yeah you know like totally it's a side of him that he thinks might be ridiculous

[00:54:14] you know overwrought because he's kind of whiny too and he just never stops talking doesn't fucking shut up yeah at the beginning when they're all in the bar so you meet the professor

[00:54:24] and you know they're all together for the first time the writer is just still talking and it's like if I'm profusery I'm thinking am I is this going to be the whole time is this

[00:54:34] the whole time this guy's just just will not shut up about triangles and you know how science is draining the world of all mystery and magic and interest when he's trying to like take a random

[00:54:47] nap on the mossy rocks like he's like shut up let me sleep he still can't escape them you know I can't wait to talk about that so the writer is clearly searching for something

[00:55:03] so deep that he can't let himself take it seriously like his defense mechanism is to keep chattering about and like to like always make light of the situation you only get the occasional

[00:55:15] glimpse of like how much this must mean like I couldn't help but thinking after the whatever two and a half viewings that this guy this is his last attempt at finding something meaningful

[00:55:27] in his life like or else he's just gonna off himself like yeah this is a pivotal point in his life if the writer can't get something out of this then he's it's almost like he's done and there's

[00:55:39] a real question as to whether he does get anything out of it yeah I don't know I don't know at the end what anybody gets out of it like I mean maybe like as we talk on one reading they're just

[00:55:50] exhausted by the end yeah one of the very clear themes that I can't miss is that this notion that the room is going to grant your innermost desire but you don't know your innermost desire

[00:56:06] and it's like a very like kind of Freudian thing to say like this is this is the this is the risk of the room like you think you're going to go in there asking for a wish but

[00:56:19] it's going to read your your innermost desire and what that is you might be very disappointed to learn it's really about this like discovery of the depths of your of your psyche yeah that's

[00:56:29] interesting um yeah it's suggested that that's what kills porcupine right is that he found his innermost desire was something base and he couldn't handle that yeah where he thought he was going in there to like bring his brother back but instead he just got a lot of money

[00:56:46] he got a lot of money and he was like oh my god that's my innermost desire I'm just a money-grubbing asshole like everybody else and he's like that's it and that's that's the worry for

[00:56:58] writer maybe is like because he's worried that he's a hack he seems like he's somewhat successful yeah yeah but but not fulfilled by what he's done I don't think he seems that proud of

[00:57:11] what he's written he certainly doesn't feel like he wants to keep doing it this is this moved me the most because I can sometimes feel like this like where am I going right now spiritually and I don't

[00:57:24] mean spiritually in like a religious sense or and also like professionally and like what am I devoting my life to right now like I don't you feel adrift yeah and you can feel that way

[00:57:37] even while you're still doing stuff that to the outside world looks like that's that seems like yeah look at Tolstoy remember a conversation about Tolstoy right yeah like you've written

[00:57:47] like a couple of the greatest novels but like and and you're just like what the fuck am I doing this is that moment the zone gives you a chance to really reckon with that because the habit

[00:57:59] is to just go on with your normal life carry on with those society women and write your bullshit that you don't even believe in anymore but it's like and because I and I know this too

[00:58:11] this feeling what if you stop believing in what you're writing you know and what you're working on yeah and he said at a deep level yeah and at some point when he's discussing this he's talking

[00:58:21] about critics it's a very like on-the-nose kind of conversation that any artist would have that's like successful like about those critics devour me like they've turned me into like their own image yeah that's what he says is like that he they have shaped him into their

[00:58:37] own image which he wanted to change them yeah right have we are we like that I was I like to think that we purposefully fight that by putting out episodes that nobody wants to hear

[00:58:51] like this one maybe so after the really long drawn-out intro and then you know it becomes like an action movie kind of slow but yeah well it's kind of slow but I mean when

[00:59:04] they're kind of running from the Jeep oh yeah totally right it's a video game yeah and it's funny like it's not like the rest of the movie I wonder why you even think this is a part of it like

[00:59:17] because this is also where it's clear that they're risking their lives so maybe it just raises the stakes of going in there so I I felt like this is Tarkovsky saying I can do this too

[00:59:27] yeah exactly yeah okay Spielberg this is after Jaws and but I also think it does yeah it just shows that that this isn't completely in their imagination what's going on you know there is a reason why

[00:59:43] this is being guarded and even if it's all some big misunderstanding like going into the zone is a complicated process yeah and I think you're right it shows that like it raises the stakes it shows

[00:59:56] that you have to be committed to do this like even if like in the end there's nothing magical about the zone and it's it's fun it like and then they have to like okay then they have to

[01:00:06] like really break through that final barrier they're just getting shot at I love I mean and driving on the tracks yeah it's so cool there's like those old timey railroad cars but this one's

[01:00:17] gas propelled so they have like the the professor got a container of gas that he brought with them that the soccer knew they were going to need and he fills it and they just get to ride on this thing

[01:00:29] all this is happening in sepia tone by the way and then they get on I don't know how do you describe this little trolley train thing it's like a train car it's like the old it's like in

[01:00:41] cartoons where the two people are like they have to push and they have to lift the lever yeah but this one's driven by a gas engine and then you just have this scene which is I remember this was

[01:00:53] that was the first time where I like like was watching it and I was just like what what and then just like I knew immediately like I have to see that scene again when I rewatched it like

[01:01:05] it's just so incredible it's just the all you get is the sounds of the train at first then a little bit of electronic music like dissonant kind of dude I love this so yeah I like I was making a note

[01:01:18] of this like you start it's the sound of the thing on the railroad tracks and like the high notes are sounding like they're getting like warped like warbled a little bit and you're like wait

[01:01:29] is that how train tracks sound like no I don't think so right and then it gets a it gets stronger it's like a spacey kind of like sci-fi yeah yeah it is the transition into the zone and you

[01:01:44] see their faces get real close-ups of the faces you don't see the train after the beginning you just see their faces as they're driving the rider kind of falls asleep dude so it's so mesmerizing like I

[01:01:58] don't know what it is about that but what you just reminded me that that's you don't see the train just like you don't see the feet of the stalker when he's carrying his daughter at the end

[01:02:07] yeah exactly it's like they're floating into it they are it's like they're going into a new dimension almost yeah it lasts a few minutes I don't know how long it lasts I didn't time it

[01:02:18] but I don't know completely just gripping and uh yeah it's like one of my favorite scenes of all time because I don't like I don't know why it's so great uh there's it's it just fully uses the

[01:02:32] every element available to to movies to just make you it's enraptured yeah it's a it's clearly like a filmmaker in his prime and like I don't know how to say this more sincerely like I'm not

[01:02:45] that not that kind of artsy cinema guy yeah but like it's so obvious that this is somebody who like a director's role is to direct attention in the in the right ways to move you emotionally

[01:03:00] and he's doing that with literally just shots of heads yeah and in one case like you say like kind of falling asleep and and some sound effects um and I was reading about this like somebody was

[01:03:15] saying that Tarkovsky's somehow films heads better than anybody else which is just so true in this movie so true yeah there's just random like middle-aged russian men you know like yeah and there's just so fascinating the way that they're so their faces are so expressive the stalker's

[01:03:33] face is just just a torment a turmoil of emotions and pain constant suffering like constant suffering like religious suffering you know soul suffering and then sometimes a kind of innocent happiness

[01:03:48] like you love those moments where he's just all of a sudden happy you know like when he first gets into the zone by the way he looks like a russian woody heraldson yes absolutely 100 yeah he does

[01:04:01] like and and some of the same ways that woody heraldson can convey that kind of boyish uh yearning for something you know totally um and so I don't remember if you said it but it it's

[01:04:12] it turns into this lush green color now now you have yeah just suddenly shoot like it's not a big deal the way they do it it's not like the wizard of os where all of a sudden like it just all

[01:04:22] of a sudden there's a shot of the landscape and it's in color this episode of very bad wizards is brought to you once again by give well one of our favorite sponsors you know now that the holiday

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[01:06:15] know that you heard about give well from us that's givewell.org pick podcast and enter very bad wizards to get your donation matched our thanks to give well for sponsoring this episode of very bad wizards I don't know how would you describe the look of the zone

[01:06:33] it's it's lush in the way that like nature has overtaken man made it's ruins with like this just just lush green you can feel almost feel the humidity yeah it's dripping it's dripping yeah yeah sometimes literally sometimes figuratively it's very hard to like fully characterize because

[01:06:57] you know there's a lot of abandoned stuff in it it's overgrown there's nothing like visually spectacular necessarily but it's but it's so rich yeah it's rich even like like shitty puddles look beautiful oh god I guess we're not going to go through all of it but no

[01:07:19] but let's say though you said this like he is happy the stalker is happy when when he enters his own it's like it's like an alcoholic who has that first drink of the day yes you know

[01:07:29] you're like now I'm feeling right like he's finally feeling right you know the professor and the writer when they first get there are already kind of bickering they're talking about apparently the the flowers don't smell yeah they lost their stuff that's brought up the right and

[01:07:43] they're just doing their kind of writer professor things and the stalker just leaves he's like I got to take a walk I have to and he doesn't even complete the sentence then when you see him just

[01:07:56] he embraces the zone yeah he's just like does a snow angel in like the bushes yeah like face down but yes it's very cool like he's just like ah this uh a huge release um so here's where I just

[01:08:10] want to say we start getting the soundtrack we start getting music and and there is one thing that's I think very well done in this movie and that is there's no real reliance on the music

[01:08:21] to set the emotional tone yeah but it's there I think he thought from what I read that it was um it was cheap to try to direct your emotions with just music like yeah that's just too easy

[01:08:35] did does like little snippets of of classical pieces like Beethoven's ninth but then also this kind of more modern electronic dissonant kind of music that will come in and it will come in and out

[01:08:47] like sometimes he will just leave a scene to be silent with just a bird uh or people you know the sound of somebody walking on on grass but yeah he the electronic music like he also tried to get

[01:09:01] some eastern sounding music like as like so it's like this blend and it just makes me it feels because of all the associations it just feels like mystical like you're you're now in this mystical

[01:09:13] area like here's his quote about that he says he says I it must evoke the far east it must be charged with the so to speak zen content whose principle is concentration and not descriptiveness

[01:09:27] yeah I love the scene where they're going they're walking through the zone and there's this abandoned jeep with I guess skeletons in it yeah it's hard to see but I guess their body's given the reaction

[01:09:40] but what's so cool about it is you know you see as we're walking you assume we're the point of view of one of the characters and then it slowly you see first the professor then the

[01:09:56] writer then the stalker and and then you realize oh wait they're in front of me and then we watch them walking across the this this field through that jeep and it's like okay so now we're here

[01:10:09] like we are in the zone at that point and there's a lot of little moments like that it doesn't overdo it with this but there's a lot of little moments where just a way a character is

[01:10:19] talking to the camera or the way that it just feels like oh I'm along for this ride obviously the most famous one maybe being the end where even though they don't go into the room we go into the

[01:10:30] room right there is a lot of filming through thresholds like doors yes oh god the bar yeah the shots outside the bar and a little like power plant out there just even that little moment where

[01:10:44] the writer wants to go back into the bar and the professor keeps him from going back in because some superstition yeah yeah a lot of these like door frames the jeep like it's I don't know what specifically it's evoking but it's just like moving to the next

[01:11:02] and moving to the next stage the way that Tarkovsky uses the positioning like his blocking it like his positioning of the people in the shot and the positioning of the camera and

[01:11:14] the movement of the camera is so fucking good it's just so good it's a master class like it's breathtaking like the slow pans the you know the long shots like the average shot in this

[01:11:27] movie is over a minute it's not like showy long takes it's not like children of men or something like that it just another way of drawing you into the whole mood and rhythm of the movie yeah the

[01:11:41] camera really is a character there is on the criterion disc there's an interview with the cinematographer and he said the third one like the final the final one yeah the final cinematographer and he says that Tarkovsky would like position their the people and their gestures

[01:12:00] in very precise ways you know like he wouldn't tell them much about their characters but he would give them very precise instructions on how to stand and like everything the composition of every

[01:12:12] shot in this movie is incredibly well thought out I don't I don't do this ever I took pictures of my screen because it was there were some shots that were so fucking cool with like the

[01:12:25] three the three actors looking at you like sitting in a particular way standing next like I would literally was taking pictures that's awesome I knew you would love this movie I was not worried

[01:12:37] for a second I was a little worried but only because of my dickishness of like well if Tamler loves it so much like I don't want to like it that's one of my that's such a sad thing

[01:12:47] but apparently I'm annoying enough about things that I initially make people not want to like things that I like you know uh that's terrible that's my uh trial what I need to go to the

[01:13:01] zone to like reckon with that but I will say you don't you don't generally lead me a straight exactly that's what my daughter says she's like except for strong dogs with stalker I remember

[01:13:11] watching it with my film class philosophy of film class and I was like the stalker I was like they need to appreciate this they need to take it seriously they need to be moved by it they can't

[01:13:21] be cynical about this or whatever but like you don't need to because the movie is just doing that already that's right to the credit of the movie like within within minutes of watching it I had

[01:13:33] forgotten how much I didn't I didn't want to like it yeah so yeah like the room is right in front of them they're doing this weird bolts thing to determine their path and I do think already it's

[01:13:47] raised a question as to whether he's just crazy and a lot of the time when he throws the the nuts you hear the cuckoo so it's like I didn't notice that yeah there's like a couple times where it's like

[01:13:59] this is this guy has he's invented it or maybe porcupine invented it but uh it's ludicrous the writer is right like he could just go walk right into the room but it's like he's really committed

[01:14:11] to this bit he's like he's so committed like he throws a metal rod at the writer when he strays a little bit or tries to pick flowers or something and the desperation in his voice you know like it's so

[01:14:23] so visceral when the writer goes to the room this is one of those cryptic things where there's no obvious explanation for as he's about to get there a voice says like don't take another step or something what is it yeah I nobody at least admits to saying it

[01:14:44] the professor accuses the writer who definitely looks terrified as he's doing it of I of doing it himself to give him an uh like an excuse to turn back

[01:14:56] um it's it's a it's a read of that uh dude I don't know if it's totally not in his imagination because everybody hears it right everybody hears it the professor tells the stalker oh that was

[01:15:09] pretty tricky of you the stalker is like it wasn't me and the professor's like oh like he did it he said it himself to get away like because he chickened out you know yeah of all the

[01:15:20] explanations I don't know the first time I saw this without knowing without having like developed any theory I thought well this is just actually obviously like true like it's like an actual voice

[01:15:32] like in the like the zone really is mystical yeah you could absolutely think that you know for whatever reason I'm tempted not to but there's some things that seem very mysterious it's just there's so few and far between and and every time the the the stalker is terrified

[01:15:51] that someone is straying from the plan they always come out okay and he's like and the stalker's like wow the zone uh demands respect but it's given you a warning it doesn't usually do that you

[01:16:04] know it feels it's all feels so post hoc but it's like they have to imbue the zone with magic for it to be magical they have to project some kind of danger on it in order for it to be

[01:16:16] dangerous um yeah but it does seem just inappropriate for them to just walk right into the room it's a journey that they have to go on you know even if it's all within like two acres or whatever

[01:16:28] you know right it really the geography really does get confusing like it's like uh totally unclear um and the landscape changes like there's like ice and then there's what is that what are those

[01:16:41] dunes those sand dunes at the end and the sand dunes that's another thing and there's also a disappearing bird that's the that was the one piece of evidence that I thought like was this

[01:16:52] this can't have been an editing error like he wouldn't do that like that that would be very intentional but like there is uh yeah a bird that flies and and then another bird that follows

[01:17:02] right after it that doesn't it doesn't disappear the bird disappears then pops out in the other like like in another part of the frame yeah yeah oh I didn't see that that same bird yeah the same bird

[01:17:14] it's like it's almost like he went through a portal and came out like at the very left of the screen like I mean part of the problem is like we don't know what's in the imagination of the

[01:17:25] like what we're seeing from the imagination of the characters or our imagination like you have to yeah what about the telephone call too I mean again like that's really strange that all of a sudden there's a there's a call and it's actually kind of funny because they're having

[01:17:39] one of their arguments about art and science and then all of a sudden those phone rings and goes no this isn't the clinic and he hangs up and then they do a thing where it's like huh yeah

[01:17:49] it caught me like you know I read that this was based on like soviet troops going into some like abandoned bombed out city and then all of a sudden like a phone would ring like it could

[01:18:04] yeah like there's infrastructure you know you never know so one thing they say that the you know around this kind of one third of the way in is that the stalker believes the zone lets through people who have lost all hope yeah like the really unhappy ones

[01:18:24] right that's who it's not the good people it's not the bad people it's just the people who've lost hope yeah it does seem like both the professor and the writer have lost hope yeah

[01:18:35] I mean the professor is not only destructive he's suicidal right yeah after he says that like the cuckoo you hear the cuckoo when he throws the nut like it's always kind of undercutting

[01:18:50] its deepest messages I think sometimes which is one thing I kind of love about about the movie and then there's just part two like for no discernible reason I guess although it's just like

[01:19:03] intermission yeah but I don't know like even in 2001 also just has this I don't know like this one it seems even more like it's not a real intermission but yet it seems like maybe some time

[01:19:17] has passed I was trying to figure out what this is all taking place within one day but it really feels like they take a nap like there like it feels like it must be longer than

[01:19:31] that it almost feels like time isn't the same in the zone as it is outside and you know the very beginning the very opening scene the wife gets mad at the stalker for taking her watch

[01:19:45] yeah and like you get the sense that he needs the watch in order to go into the zone and like it made me think that maybe that's how to the only way he can keep track of like

[01:19:58] how much time has actually gone by because it seems like forever in there you know what it totally reminds me of is like an acid trip or a mushroom trip in which also is just

[01:20:10] you have no real sense of time and and also space like you feel like you've gone on this big journey even if maybe you've been on some hillside for the whole time wandering around different areas

[01:20:23] of it the way things are drawn out and and the fact that it kind of divides itself into episodes but without having them be clearly defined why they're different episodes you know they're like different stages it's uh i wonder to what extent he was influenced by something like

[01:20:41] that it seems like the whole like going from sepia to like color is is uh the richness of being high on something yeah and and even if it's just being alert to like you were saying like

[01:20:56] just the visuals and the sounds like the textures and sounds of life yeah i was talking to you about this offline like the sound the sound in this movie threw me off at first because the voices often seem

[01:21:08] like they're they're almost like dubbed in and and you don't get a whole lot of just like the ambient like just what you might call room tone in a room like just that sort of like

[01:21:18] background hum normal sound doesn't get in yeah right ambient sound is like not part of the zone yeah and he says that like when he gets in there like he's like it's so quiet so still in

[01:21:29] here it's so quiet in here this you're in a different sensory world and like the sound of glass under their feet is just as loud as crunching like grape nuts or something you know

[01:21:39] like in your mouth right yeah it's also like uh sleep inducing right it's yeah so this you know when you were saying the thing about acid tripper mushrooms i don't like i don't think

[01:21:53] this is an explanation for it but you know how the oracle at delphi is seems to be in part because there was like some some fumes that came out of there naturally that made people trip out

[01:22:05] i didn't know that yeah so like maybe there is something in the zone that's like actually making them trip yeah and that would explain voices and like the bird i mean absolutely that it's

[01:22:17] definitely open to the pot the reality of the film that a lot of the charge stuff and even a lot of their like arguments are zone influenced by just uh some kind of it doesn't have to be supernatural

[01:22:34] but just the fact i read that zizek said just the fact that it's cordoned off is gives it like it's mystery and magic like once you cordon something off and you don't let anybody in then

[01:22:48] going in there get like already that's what it's going to have this kind of mystical magical quality to it i think it's like anal you're not supposed to do it but it's it's magical

[01:23:00] deep so they go in when part two starts at some point as they go through this dry tunnel which is actually just water just pouring down just uh i don't know from what i guess the river

[01:23:15] or something it's never totally clear what how water plays a role in it's definitely plays a role and sometimes it's just pouring through you know like a waterfall then when they go through it

[01:23:28] they realize the professor was gone and then like you said earlier they find him and then that just sends the stalker he's like i i can't i'm not gonna take another step until i try to figure this out

[01:23:42] and that's when they're go to that crazy scene of them for whatever reason like taking a nap and kind of tiredly bickering um yeah like as they're flying it really does seem like they've

[01:23:57] been drugged and like because they're like as they're falling asleep all of them on like mossy rocks and water they're they're arguing and yeah and the in the writer seems to have like that slightly more energy like when you're to sleep over and like you know elementary school

[01:24:13] and there's the one kid who won't stop talking exactly and you're just kind of annoyed but you don't even have the energy to tell them to shut up if you actually can get a little bit

[01:24:25] drawn into what they're saying if they push the right buttons yeah and then meanwhile the stalker i guess falls asleep he's the most in water and then a dog appears and kind of goes

[01:24:39] and lays down by him and it's actually a very kind of beautiful image it goes back to sepia tone um and then i think it's monkey as read reads a passage from the book of revelations that

[01:24:53] kind of plays over the soundtrack kind of like this is something that he's dreaming um yeah what do you make of this whole scene i i the sepia tones indicate his real mundane life so like

[01:25:07] it's just you know you don't know at the first time i don't think i knew that it's monkey's voice his daughter's voice who's reading this from the book of revelation um once you know that

[01:25:20] like it did give me the vibes that there is a weird connection between monkey and the zone and like that there might actually she might actually be somehow communicating she's plugged

[01:25:31] in for the zone in the way the wife is not right right there is something whatever it is that they were saying about stalkers having fucked up kids it's almost like radiation or something

[01:25:44] you know you really get the sense that um but whatever it is like the stalker's kid has some of the zone essence in her and it like it's amazing because we don't get really that much to

[01:25:59] support that but i feel that yeah like i believe that as much as i believe anything about this movie yeah almost like she sent the dog to like guide her dad back or something maybe yeah something

[01:26:11] yeah i like that actually yeah that would be cool that'd be cool like you yeah i'm because the dog seems very benevolent i mean yeah even though it seems like the dog just lays down beside

[01:26:22] the stalker when the stalker needs that to happen yeah um i read an essay that somebody was arguing that the dog represents the doubt creeping into the stalker's life and i yeah like i don't want

[01:26:36] to believe that but it was a kind of a an interesting argument that you know the the writer already had five dogs um yeah and the stalker comes back with the dog and maybe with a

[01:26:49] renewed doubt yeah that's interesting yeah well i guess we'll talk about where he is mentally at the end but i also love that slow pan towards the end of this dreamy sequence where it's all in sepia and the swampy water and the syringes and hubcaps and like coins

[01:27:08] there's a picture of jesus yeah it's a little icon um you i i wondered when i was watching that how much of that was just like found in that shitty like area already and how much he planted in there

[01:27:22] yeah i don't know the jesus icon has to be planted like what do you make of all this religion like the book of revelation stuff talking about the sixth seal like there's so much christian imagery i don't know what he's trying to do with that other than

[01:27:35] it's just another little i don't know like if this is another thing that you can grasp on to if you so choose and i was surprised like i don't know i have no idea what the like the soviet union

[01:27:50] allowed in their movies but like obviously they're very strongly atheist and and they were funding these movies so i was wondering if he's sneaking i don't know it's not sneaking it's not at all a picture of jesus the crown of thore and then there's

[01:28:06] really no relation yeah i don't know like i don't know like i know he had some christian orthodox inclinations i i i see him a lot like toll story where it's more of just a way into

[01:28:22] some deeper dimension of reality but it doesn't have to be the same way and then it's not in any way literally the quote from the book of revelation is you know it's like it's the end of

[01:28:32] the world and it's like the earthquakes will come and the moon turns to blood and the sun is black and out and it's it's very apocalyptic and and i was like is he just saying this like to say

[01:28:46] some creepy shit at this point in the movie or is there some actual deeper meaning to this maybe it's like what you said earlier that the writer like this this is the end of the world

[01:28:57] you know first these characters if they can't get something out of the zone or maybe it's the end of the world for stalker if he can't do the thing he he believes he was born to do which is

[01:29:10] redeem and guide people to understand life at a deeper less superficial level than their understanding it yeah like that it's like the urgency so stalker then gets up and kind of looks

[01:29:25] he just immediately looks right into the camera and then they have this he gives this speech kind of uncharacteristic about music yeah what do you make of that so he says like you were talking about the

[01:29:36] meaning of life the selflessness of art take music for example it's connected least of all with reality or if connected it's without ideas it's just empty sound with associations and yet music by some miracle penetrates our very soul what resonates within us in response to this like

[01:29:55] what is the chord he says that is in us that responds to music he says you'll respond for no one it's for no reason just like that but he think he's stating right now his belief that

[01:30:09] there is meaning and a reason to why we can respond to something as not language based yeah it's like very non-cognitive like it's one of the few ways to give people emotions without

[01:30:25] actually giving them the concepts it's non-conceptual yeah and like I just took it to be an expression of his mysticism like there is just real deep mysticism in in the stalker and he sees meaning

[01:30:40] everywhere but it was interesting to me because it did come from sort of out of nowhere like this very interesting take on music yeah and like kind of cuts off through all the bullshit

[01:30:51] that the professor and the writer are bickering about art versus science yeah and it just kind of cuts to the heart of that by the way water is like for Christians it's such a symbol of

[01:31:08] you know like the baptism the changing that the transition the transformation of the soul from like being lost to being saved like it's you know that's interesting there's also I think this came a little bit before but he he launches into this as they enter some kind of

[01:31:27] new part of the journey he says may everything come true may they believe and may they laugh at their passions for what they call passion is not really the energy of the soul but merely

[01:31:38] friction between the soul in the outside world but above all may they believe in themselves and become as helpless as children for softness is great and strength is worthless when a man

[01:31:49] is born he is soft and pliable when he dies he is strong and hard when a tree grows it is soft and pliable when it but when it's dry and hard it dies hardness and strength are death's companions

[01:32:02] flexibility and softness are the embodiment of life that which has become hard shall not try am and so that's a really interesting in some sense thesis statement for the movie in some sense

[01:32:15] this is where the zen aspect of this idea of softness and this idea that you don't want to define yourself in opposition to the world you want to be a part of it that's what the

[01:32:28] stalker wants that's why he's doing snow angels in the grass that's why the writer and the professor are defining themselves in contrast to the world and what he stalker wants although i don't

[01:32:40] know if he can fully have it is to go with the flow of the zone and right and that's what he thinks is almost the highest ideal here i mean that's another way in which water is a powerful sort

[01:32:52] of like you know what water conforms to the shape of the things around it but it's this tremendously powerful force but it doesn't it's not rigid exactly and it and it play it will

[01:33:03] adapt itself to its surroundings in a seamless way and that's what yeah the water in this movie does right it's like it's hard to tell like where does the water you know it's getting in everywhere

[01:33:17] you don't know where yeah and especially like how beautiful that scene right from the in the room yeah yeah we should get let's keep going yeah you know this is actually where it starts getting

[01:33:28] a little more i don't know the momentum starts going forward that's almost like a little drowsy interlude where you're almost drowsy like the movie and then as they go through the meat grinder the fucking meat grinder yeah and this is where the interesting episode where nobody wants to

[01:33:50] be the first one to go through this long pipe and the stalker says okay we're gonna draw straws and he gets a couple of matches and he says to the writer if you pull the long straw you have to go

[01:34:03] so he pulls it and it's long and so he sends them along later we find out i don't know what to make of this later we find out that both both straws were long like well that's just what the writer

[01:34:14] says we don't know that yeah i know he never objects to it you know like he always shifts the conversation in a way that's one question i had those why doesn't stalker go first like

[01:34:24] stalker acts like shook he acts like he's really scared and in fact like they send he sends isn't that his job i know i the guide you have to go first what's very weird is the

[01:34:35] bravery that he had entering the zone with all the gunfire and he really took command yeah and then like the fear that he has in the zone there's no they're never really the danger never really

[01:34:47] appears or there's walking through a pipe no uh in the meat grinder right yeah like i mean it is shot with the greatest suspense yeah and i you know like i'm on the edge of my seat as i'm

[01:34:58] watching it for the first time but it's just walking through a weird old abandoned tunnel that's dripping and you know it's such a cool scene like the little the way the light and then

[01:35:09] the water starts pouring through in the crunching of the like gravel or glass under their feet so the writer is going ahead that it's really interestingly shot like it this is the most

[01:35:20] golem like that the stalker gets you know he's kind of like just his like you know he's kind of crunched and like sideways with the professor who's just but yeah i guess my question is

[01:35:33] there's two straws right there's two matches so it was between him and the professor it like the soccer was never going to go for like and there's no explanation for why he doesn't always go

[01:35:45] first given that he's done this before you know maybe it's because if they you know if the first person dies they need him to get back like i don't know yeah it's i have i have no idea but just seeing

[01:35:59] the way that like he's running behind the the writer uh and like hiding behind the professor kind of like it's it's it's very weird that's what it is very it's very it's funny but it's

[01:36:09] also beautiful it's like so then the writer gets to the threshold of some room and he pulls out a gun which is just it couldn't seem more worthless to have like if you are buying the danger of the

[01:36:27] zone at this point like having a gun like what are you going to do just start firing at the right and the stalker says is butchered pulses the guy's like who are you going to shoot in

[01:36:35] there yeah so but he's very upset that he has a gun in the first place the the stalker is so upset about the gun he again gets that desperation in his voice and then when the writer goes into the room

[01:36:49] and the the stalker and the professor following him the and the the stalker like sees the gun on the floor and like it's it's almost like uh like he can barely stand to touch it he pushes it

[01:37:01] back into the water and it feels like the gun like the gun has disrespected the zone like yeah like disrespecting the Bing um yeah and he he he's almost like ashamed that that he brought a gun in

[01:37:15] there yeah and you get the sense that's how a lot of these artifacts maybe got there like from people who disrespected the zone and and he's just like all right this just joins the rest of these

[01:37:27] random artifacts that will be here for years and years um so then they go through this room which is like it has like uh I guess a ladder or stairs that go down into the deepest water that

[01:37:41] they yeah will wade through it looks like you're they're in a submarine that's like been leaking yeah exactly that's exactly what and and then you have to and you just go through it and up

[01:37:53] again this was a room that they could have just walked into but no now you have to get yourself like neck deep and just probably the most disgusting cancer giving water literally dude

[01:38:05] I've hurt having read that that like they all got cancer um and watching the scene it hurt to watch yeah and they go through that and then I guess the writer goes too far ahead because the stalker

[01:38:18] tells them to he has these rules and it's like what like what are your rules like no like no like does he care it does he inspect them or like or did he just like did I feel like porcupine

[01:38:32] invented them and then like he's he actually like you know drank the kool-aid about him but he's also like doesn't seem it doesn't seem to me that he's afraid because he's protecting

[01:38:42] the writer it seems as if like he's afraid in general like if the writer breaks a rule they're all fucked you know yeah and again it's just more disrespect for the zone yeah every time the

[01:38:54] zone gets disrespected it hurts the stalker yeah he suffers yeah um but somehow the writer gets and this is into the dune uh scene which is again one of the more magical

[01:39:09] like what why is there a room full of I guess sand dunes yeah there are sand dunes like how did it get there I was wondering like what what parkas he was doing there like what was he thinking like

[01:39:24] I mean it's visually it's spectacular it's like one of the coolest visuals from the whole movie and the writer just collapses and he collapses I thought he was dead the first time I watched

[01:39:35] I was like wait did they just kill the writer then he does get up and here's where he like gives one of his oh I'm a tortured artist kind of speeches but I also feel like it is probably

[01:39:48] expressing thoughts that Tarkovsky has to like my work is constantly being warped by the demands of yeah you put your heart and soul in your work and they devour you um and if I die in a couple

[01:40:03] days they'll find someone else to devour yeah that's where he says they change yeah they've yeah they've changed me to fit their own image and yeah totally it's it's rambly too like he goes

[01:40:13] he goes from point to point and you get this feeling that it is Tarkovsky's like catharsis about like and this is like a charged atmosphere right now like people are just saying things randomly this is where the bird disappears this you know the dunes are inexplicable

[01:40:31] and they are on the threshold of the the room as well but there's another room they go into first this is where the writer starts getting really mad at stalker yeah um and you know he's

[01:40:43] still nursing a grudge about the the the match but I believe that the matches are both because he says like I saw you know I saw them they're both long and the the stalker is super evasive

[01:40:56] and it seemed like he was ingratiating himself to the writer by saying oh the zone has picked you like you're a better man than I thought like I shouldn't yeah oh you think of that was more

[01:41:06] I took that as sincere because I always take what he does as in here yeah maybe but like it did seem like he was avoiding the question of the matches he even tells them like look let's stop talking

[01:41:15] about the matches and this is also where we find out about porcupine's brother that apparently he was a poet delicate kind of poetic soul that went through the meat grinder and died

[01:41:26] and uh stalker says here is something that porcupine's brother wrote now summer is passed it might never have been it is warm in the sun but it isn't as enough all that I could attain like a five-fingered

[01:41:41] leaf fell straight in my hands but it isn't enough neither evil nor good has yet vanished in vain it all burned and was light but it isn't enough life has been a shield and offered protection

[01:41:52] I have been very lucky but it isn't enough the leaves were not burned the buffs were not broken the day shines like glass but it isn't enough so what do you make of that poem it's written by

[01:42:04] Andre Tarkovsky's father actually uh along to who was a poet um it reminded me of like ecclesiastes like when when like the you know everything is lost it's brilliant like it's it's no longer yeah yeah like so so that's one way it's like everything seems like outwardly it's

[01:42:29] going well but it's lost it's sheen it's lost it's uh appeal luster uh the other thing I was thinking was that it is an expression of like again this buddhist concept of dukkha like we are not wired

[01:42:46] to be satisfied by life it's not that it used to have this mystery but it now doesn't it's more that this is part of our suffering this is part of our tragedy we we aren't designed to be satisfied

[01:43:01] by what life is giving us and yet it's all here and like the zone is like that this it is here waiting for you to be gratified by it find meaning in it but we can't accept that

[01:43:16] we're always looking for more that's samsara that's suffering it's the the condition so is it that like yeah but I also think like that's what you're saying is right too like that's the writer you

[01:43:34] know like the writer probably once enjoyed the trappings of being a successful writer and all the women and the all the off brand women the off brand women yeah the b-minuses but whatever for that place

[01:43:50] he's the looker of yeah the day shines like glad it's like this world is giving you all you need but what you need is that softness to be satisfied with it right so there's this side plot of the

[01:44:07] professor like he once he finds out a phone works he calls I guess some guy at the lab that he used to work with yeah laboratory nine and he says like he found it so it's like

[01:44:21] he's talking about that he found the zone in bunker four like I found it and the guy on the other line is like you know this is going to end your career as a scientist

[01:44:31] and I wasn't sure what that meant did it mean nobody's going to respect you as a scientist because you believe this malarkey or did it mean like you have violated a deep rule of our

[01:44:44] organization and no one's ever gonna like I thought it was more the latter like it's not necessarily that he believes in it because I think that's not clear even when he's giving

[01:44:53] his speech about why he's going to blow up the room it's more that yeah we didn't say that by the way he has a bomb he has a bomb that's what was in the backpack and it's a very you know like

[01:45:06] it's very sad you know when the stalker like I almost like it's unbearable to see the stalker how pain he is at the thought that this might get blown up but but in terms of that conversation

[01:45:18] I get that he's just saying look we decided we're a team that that it shouldn't be blown up that we should leave it maybe for further investigation or whatever and also you're just doing this because

[01:45:31] I fucked your wife 20 years ago which I totally buy absolutely all that Dawkins the science bullshit it's like he is getting revenge on the world for somebody fucking his wife I so I was confused by what the professor actually believes because he really does seem to say

[01:45:57] you know this whole time you're like oh there's a man of science like he doesn't really believe but but he went right so but then you're like okay but maybe what explains it is he didn't go

[01:46:06] because he believed he went because he's going to blow it up but when he's saying why he's going to blow it up he seems to be endorsing that this room might actually satisfy desires and what will

[01:46:19] happen when like the worst people in the world find out about this room and they come and their desires come true like we can't let this happen so I was like wait it could be that they come

[01:46:29] into the room think that they have their greatest desire granted and that that's the danger the fact that people might project their own fantasies onto it that is too dangerous whether or not it can

[01:46:48] actually grant people their innermost desire yeah so here's what he says I assembled it with my friends my former colleagues this place evidently won't bring anyone happiness and if it's and if

[01:47:00] it falls into the wrong hands back then we had the idea that the zone shouldn't be destroyed even if it was a miracle even if it was it was part of nature and that means hope in a certain sense

[01:47:10] so they hid this bomb and I found it old building bunker for obviously there has to be the principal to never perform irreversible actions I understand that I'm not a psychopath

[01:47:20] but as long as this canker is open for any asshole there can be no rest for me or maybe it's that innermost that won't let me that's all he says I think like I'm looking at the screenplay right now

[01:47:35] you don't know from that I don't think what he thinks yeah you're right when you read it it's true I think the writer imputes the belief to him yeah and the writer I love the writer's

[01:47:47] response is like if you believe that like you know people come in here and they're satisfied their desire for world domination then you're pretty much an idiot because nobody's innermost desire is anything as lofty as like world domination like people want base things like you know they

[01:48:05] want selfish simple that's their innermost desire and that's the writer's fear I think right there is right that's why he doesn't want to go into the room why do you so so there's

[01:48:16] what follows is a scene where the stalker tries to wrestle the bomb away from professor desperately desperately just yeah yeah like um and they have an almost somewhat comical fight over it

[01:48:28] but then the writer comes in and just starts beating the shit out of stalker like punching him throwing him down into the water very unexpectedly like you don't think of the writer as having more physical prowess as stalker throughout this movie and all of a sudden he's getting

[01:48:45] pushed around like a little kid you know like the writer just literally just shoves him into the water like a couple of times three times yeah punches in like and stalker doesn't even fight back

[01:48:55] he just gets up and immediately goes for the bomb he doesn't ever even get mad at the writer you know yeah and this is the saddest part of the stalker like he's like yes i'm a louse but

[01:49:06] I like this is the one thing I can do is help people lead people to get without hope to a place where they might have hope you know this is all I have and then the writer kind of calms down

[01:49:19] you could see that I don't know if his professor's heart was ever in to destroying the plan you know like yeah it's almost like he brought it that's why he was there but uh but it's it doesn't take

[01:49:32] too long too much for him to just completely abandon disassemble the bomb totally yeah he takes it apart his little thermos bomb and he and he tosses it yeah and then stalker's like okay you

[01:49:44] know this is it like you know we're on the threshold whoever wants to go first the stalker doesn't go in he that's a rule or he you know he says earlier he's happy the way he he is

[01:50:00] he's happy just being the guide to the room he doesn't need to go into the room right but then none of them go in and the the writer almost falls in and gets scared about that like

[01:50:12] almost panicked as he's about to fall into the room and then stalker pulls them back and there's kind of a nice scene with the writer putting his arm around stalker who's still very upset

[01:50:22] why do you think they don't go in the room you know I might be imputing my own like what I would be feeling the idea that you go into the room and nothing happens would be devastating

[01:50:37] and the idea that you go into the room and your basis desires are fulfilled is also scary like it's feels no like a no win to go into the room and I feel like sort of like Pandora's box like that

[01:50:50] leaving that last step still there maybe lets them hold on to some hope there is something special about keeping that last step there if it doesn't work out like you said before it's it's

[01:51:05] the last resort so but do you think it's like a failure that they don't go in or is it wisdom you know I'm I'm processing this as we're talking because like I never really had an

[01:51:18] answer to it but it does feel to me like they went through an emotional journey that will make them like they don't need it they thought they needed it but maybe they don't like they actually had some some growth throughout that whole journey that led them to conclude

[01:51:38] that they don't actually need the room in the way it woke some dormant spiritual there's a connection to life yeah yeah some peace with who they are and what they are

[01:51:50] like they don't need the magic of the room to make their and maybe it won't make their life better you know yeah right and uh yeah the professor says like I don't understand anything anymore why did

[01:52:04] we come here and I think like that's a good lesson you know I don't understand and yeah totally absolutely you know the fact that the scientist who wants to make everything triangles and geometry

[01:52:19] is just admitting that he doesn't understand and that he's at at sea as much as everybody else is enough I guess the because this wasn't a scientific journey you know this was an emotional

[01:52:31] journey and yeah he was wrong to treat it as you know the whole time the writer is mocking him for like bringing his scientific instruments what are you going to do measure bring out your

[01:52:39] microscopes and your lasers or something right in the way that I would you know and that kind of annoying when I was watching I was like I know why but then I don't know like when I

[01:52:52] watched it could have been because I was a little sick still when I was watching it this time around because I don't remember feeling this before I got a real sense of despair at the end it's like

[01:53:03] what if you realize you're not up to this you talked big about going into this new place of you know where anything can happen and it's new possibilities and you can transform your life

[01:53:15] and make it meaningful now and then you realized I'm just going to stay with my old pattern of habits and and you know at least they maybe recognize that but it's not some sort of triumph

[01:53:30] it is out of fear and out of you know they're not built fully handle it I I think I felt that too to be honest and I think that there are two there are two different ways to take that ending

[01:53:46] in the shot where they're looking into the room and they're just sitting there and it starts raining that's a shot of despair I think they feel like they've disappointed themselves like that they they're disappointed in their inability their cowardice and not going into the room

[01:53:59] but then when they're back and like CPO life I feel like they're better for having done it I will say that this time watching it you know so that last shot of them in the zone because it's

[01:54:13] completely inexplicable how it's so beautiful and because it just slowly pans out and then all of a sudden you're in the room and I honestly felt like wait a minute I didn't agree to go into the

[01:54:25] room yeah you know right and you are looking at them through the doorway you are looking at them through the doorway of the room and now like wait like I got violated too because like he's treating the whole thing so like mysteriously like at first you don't even

[01:54:43] see that the room all you see is that they're looking into it like the threshold and then all of a sudden what what I mean you realize pork you pine hung himself after he went

[01:54:55] and and also there's clearly nothing visibly special about the room no right no more than the rest of the zone right it is weird that there are fish swimming in a room yeah in the floor

[01:55:10] but like that's just normal zone stuff yeah it's unclear where the rain is coming from like their underground yeah but it is so beautiful that's the thing it's like you can't be too

[01:55:20] despairing because that's what I was thinking that's what yeah that's exactly where I pulled out my camera and I was like I have to take a picture yeah there is beauty in the in the disappointment

[01:55:29] it's weird it's very weird and then there's the dog you know and even the wife seems to recognize that well the dog came out of this that's good and you seem to like dogs and that's why I don't

[01:55:40] want to believe that the dog represents doubt because that seems like a bad thing like the dog feels like a guide that like is pulling them out almost like you don't need this what you need

[01:55:52] is to come back like live your life you know live with your family yeah you know yeah he's been ignoring his family like it's not nice they are unbelievably supportive of him

[01:56:07] under the circumstances it's like a pastor's wife you know yeah she comes to pick him up at the bar they take home the dog like you said that the writer already has five dogs professor

[01:56:18] probably doesn't think it's rational to have a dog certainly not a pit bull and then the dog follows them home it's a beautiful scene and it's in color it's one of the few

[01:56:29] in color shots that or if not the only in color shot that's not in the zone and so and that's a very hopeful scene of them walking back with the dog and her you think she's

[01:56:41] walking at first yeah absolutely like it's very shot really well to make you think oh monkey can walk after all but then no she's on the shoulders of stalker yeah I knew but it's nice that he's

[01:56:53] even doing that it's a nice dad thing to do you know exactly and she also has this look about her I can't describe like a sort of like dignity and control that she has that like neither

[01:57:09] of her parents seem to have they both have desperation in their face you know very different kind of desperation but they both throw themselves on the floor a lot a lot yeah she's young you know

[01:57:24] it's you get harder as you get older and she still has a little bit of that softness I guess um it's she's so inscrutable and it's uh it you know she's like has a green head wrap

[01:57:39] yeah it's babushka kind of yeah yeah I like clearly like he loves his saturated colors like I think that having having that scene in color um to I don't know why like it seems like

[01:57:53] there wasn't when he did that I was like well there's no rules then to the color like but then I was like maybe the daughter just represents the zone like the daughter is like yeah because actually even though stalker will then lie on the floor and you know

[01:58:09] complain about the fact that everybody's too cynical and nobody believes nobody believes he's so white yeah but it's almost it's still kind of hopeful like the wife is now being fully supportive and she gives a speech to the camera about how everyone told her

[01:58:30] not to marry him but she's never regretted it for a second that that threw me for like a loop like you know in in a great movie my one knit to pick is her breaking that fourth wall to give us

[01:58:47] this speech about her husband just seemed out of nowhere yeah it is out of you know in a movie that has a lot of strange things and a lot of people looking at the camera it seems more out of place

[01:59:02] than some of the other things because it's also like telling you stuff it's like it's addressing us like it says you've probably like who's she talking to yeah I know she's talking to us

[01:59:14] you might make fun of this guy but this is our this is our window into a life that actually has meaning he is as crazy and like foolish as he is and comical it's this or just sepia dreariness

[01:59:34] yeah and she says like it's been it's brought us a lot of sorrow but without sorrow there wouldn't be happiness she's a very russian yes like sentiment like the negativity is necessary

[01:59:47] yeah by the way I have a clear note in my in my notes that when when they cut to monkey in the last scene it's back to color so yeah let's talk about that the dogs there drink some milk

[01:59:58] I hope they get it some actual dog food I know I was like is it your cat it's not a cat the dog needs food it's a great dog it it was stalker stalker it laid him out of the zone so

[02:00:15] but looks okay so cuts to monkey it looks like she's reading I didn't know if it was a bible or not but then she's saying a poem yeah yeah like a voiceover

[02:00:25] of a poem because she's not she has her head down on a table and there are three glasses on the table and she appears to be moving one glass then the other and then finally a third

[02:00:41] and knocks it off the table um yeah but it doesn't shatter it just kind of it just kind of yeah and also at at a certain point during this the dog kind of whimpers the dog is whining yeah

[02:00:52] and she looks at the dog and uh the dog shouts the fuck up but this is where I thought that like the dog was yeah in in my she was malevolent or the dog or the dog is just feeling that there

[02:01:08] is this zone something going on yeah yeah like the dog is from the zone the dog knows when some zone shit is happening the clear implication is she's moving the glasses with her mind

[02:01:20] but there's enough especially with the opening scene where a glass also moves and like we said earlier you could imagine that she knows this house so well and the train rhythms so well

[02:01:31] that she knows how these glasses are going to go and she's just watching them because that's what you do to pass the time when you literally have nothing to do and you live in like an

[02:01:42] abandoned chemical factory town you know it's like Pittsburgh yeah exactly like probably there little girls that watch glasses kind of move inexplicably but that said they all kind they

[02:01:57] move in sequence yeah and the train is not close yet when no but that was true in the opening shot too yeah but you heard more of a rumble in the opening shot yeah maybe and it's a very odd ending

[02:02:11] I texted you right afterwards I was like she has she has mutant powers like like she's an X man like the natural ending of that movie is the shot of them standing on the

[02:02:24] threat sitting on the threshold of the of the zone and him throwing parts of the bomb into the zone or maybe the shot of them at the bar with the mysterious bartender like like like he's out

[02:02:34] of the shining yes right but instead you have a fairly long like coda and then to end with this it's like I think it's like Tarkovsky because she also puts her head on the table very you know

[02:02:48] like everybody is kind of drowsy and you know putting their heads down it's almost like Tarkovsky is saying like what do you make of this you who have been so skeptical put this into your triangle

[02:03:05] you know a prime b prime but he's also giving you the ability to explain it away but I like it's almost like if you if you do that then like I can't do anything for you

[02:03:19] you know I don't know so yeah like I feel like he wanted he wanted to give us the gift of mystery still he was giving us some hope you know and is it hope like because she doesn't seem hopeful

[02:03:39] I don't know like I guess it's hope there is like that the star child interpretation that you were alluding to earlier which is like she might be representing sort of like the next step

[02:03:48] state like humanity you know this is in some like unmentioned future time but it's one thing to have that when it is a baby that is looking over the earth from space it's another thing in

[02:04:02] the dingiest shittiest apartment for a girl to have her head on the table like that doesn't seem like this is the next stage of evolution but at the same time like I think it is

[02:04:14] Tarkovsky saying yes maybe it is like there is hope in mystery and this mystery is you know that this is all we have it's all admitted it's confusing man it's a very confusing yeah

[02:04:30] I have nothing on it no it was like all I can say is that it didn't emotionally it didn't harm my understanding of the movie it like was a it felt cool it felt interesting it felt like

[02:04:48] there was something to the zone like it like I don't want to describe it in a way that that it's like sounds like it's like a stupid like out of nowhere ending it is out of nowhere but it's

[02:04:59] I felt like he was giving us something at the end like that's all I can say is the emotion yeah that like it's this little girl who is in the shittiest of shitty situations seems to have

[02:05:15] have something special like and maybe some connection to what we have maybe mocked her father for believing you know throughout this movie and he's honestly mockable but like she has a real connection

[02:05:29] maybe the one that he wants but he can't have I love your thing where she sent the dog to kind of get him back I think that's great and you know maybe that's why she doesn't like when the

[02:05:43] wife at the beginning is trying to stop him from going in you know yeah I mean but like you can try to do that but it's not like it's the most inscrutable of endings like even compared to

[02:05:56] all the you know cryptic things that happen in the rest of the movie this is like yeah this is a different level I don't I don't understand he stepped it up he stepped it up the

[02:06:09] end it's like you're the professor at that point I don't understand anything right yeah oh yeah actually I like that but he's giving us the feeling that the professor had professor professor he has a feeling oh man all right

[02:06:27] my class is three hours and 15 minutes is that right is that all right um well I got I got a chance to talk about this movie for a long time with uh with you and so I can't I feel like we've

[02:06:40] we've walked into the zone and come back out yeah yeah and we can move glasses yeah and I have a little black dog in my house too all right uh join us next time on very bad with the post

[02:06:55] stalker post that nothing will ever be the same I want to congratulate us for getting through this whole episode without saying the word liminal I said it once oh you did I did when I was describing

[02:07:08] the bar the bar like I couldn't help it like it does feel like the most liminal of liminal shots yes absolutely and the zone itself is liminal everything is liminal everything you know liminal liminal everything is liminal join us next time on very bad with her