Andrei Tarkovsky: The Stalker (1979)

Tarkovsky's comments on his films:

"Anyone who wants can look at my films as into a mirror, in which he will see himself. My function is to make whoever sees my films aware of his need to love and to give his love, and aware that beauty is summoning him."

On "The Stalker":

"The Zone doesn't symbolize anything, any more than anything else does in my films; the zone is a zone, it's life, and as he makes his way across it a man may break down or he may come through. Whether he comes through or not depends on his own self-respect, and his capacity to distinguish what matters and what is merely passing."

"But There Has to Be More"
- by Arseny Tarkovsky (Tarkovsky's brother)

Now summer is gone.
And might never have been.
In the sunshine it's warm.
But there has to be more.

It all came to pass,
All fell into my hands
like a five-petalled leaf,
But there has to be more.

Nothing evil was lost,
Nothing good was in vain,
All ablaze with clear light
But there has to be more.

Life gathered me up
Safe under its wing,
My luck always held,
But there has to be more.

Not a leaf was burnt up
Not a twig ever snapped ...
Clean as glass is the day,
But there has to be more.

Maybe, "The Stalker" is a movie about 'what more there has to be in our life.' Is it true that our desire for 'more' cannot be filled? When it is filled, there is emptiness again. We don't even know what we really want.

The writer in the movie tells the stalker;

"You're just a God's fool. You have no idea what's going on here. Why do you think Porcupine hanged himself? ... Why didn't he come here again, not for money, but for his brother in way of repenting" ... Because he realized that not just any wish comes true here, but only your innermost wish. Not what would you hooler at the top of your voice. Coming true here is only what's in line with your nature, with your essence, of which you know nothing. But it's there, in you, directing you all your life. You didn't understand anything, Leather Stocking. It wasn't greed that had done Porcupine in. He was crawling in this puddle, begging to bring his brother back. But what he got was only money, and he couldn't get anything else, because render unto Porcupine the things that are Porcupine's! And things like conscience, anguish, they are just inventions. He realized that and hanged himself. ... You don't understnad anything about human beings, Chingachgook."

We do not know what our innermost desire is. Sometimes, what we pray for seems to be thwarted, not answered by God. Our discontented heart boils with why.
Pastor Bob talked about a passive kind of faith last Sunday; not that kind in which we want something and pray for it hard, but that we believe God and stay out of God's way.
Not our will, but God's will.
Not our way, but God's way.