“Hypnotic” is an interesting term to use. I’ve always been wondering how Tarkovsky’s conveys this “hypnotic” style. I’ve noticed a similar atmosphere in the films of Kiyoshi Kurosawa (as well as maybe one or two other filmmakers, but the strongest one being Kurosawa).
I’ve often felt Tarkovsky’s characters pass through each scene with a sense of detachment from their surroundings. In several parts of several films, Tarkovsky has something important or unusual happening on screen, but few, if anyone, react to it occurring. They seem distracted and almost too full of thought and philosophy. Don’t get me wrong, I love this style . . . I just can’t stop myself from exploring it’s structure. Personally, I hope nobody ever figures out Tarkovsky’s methods of filmmaking (for fear of copycats), but this is merely a discussion, no?
Images that escapes rational descriptions, thats a thing that I find in the films by Andrei Tarkovsky. Many of the scenes are not of this world, neither the cinematographic world. They are from an alternate universe, many scenes of Stalker point to that. Like the gradual visualization of the spiritual world when the dog appears to the screen. A dog who became from another dimension, a metaphysical dimension.
I think that this hypnotic style is because the approach similar to music and haiku in the cinematographic technique, a poetic minimalistic world, abstract enough that we cannot rationalize, we just live the film. We apprehend this reality and we change something inside us, we cannot describe it, neither understand it in the fully sense of the word. Stalker is a very powerful film in that sense.
The concept of time trapped is like trapping the universe and the unknown in the cinematographic image, the director Bela Tarr goes beyond, achieving an image that apprehend a reality that we otherwise will not percieve making visible the invisible. The forms of the universe and reality are trapped and we finally percieve this forms. After watching a Tarkovsky film, or an Ozu, or a Tarr film you watch the world in a quite different way.
God, Artemiev’s score is good.
I second your comment, Ben. The score is breathtaking. From the moment the film fades in with the music, I was captivated. I think “hypnotic” is a perfect way to describe the film because it keeps you under its spell from beginning to end. You are enveloped in the mystery of the Zone and of the tortured Stalker. I think enigmatic is another word to describe the film. Tarkovsky really blew me away with Stalker. I wish Criterion would gain the rights to it and release it.
PoopButt
The most hypnotic film ever? Andrei Tarkovsky’s Stalker