Stalker is a lot like a Catholic Easter vigil: it tries to encompass the whole history of human salvation in just under three hours, and though for the most part it is infuriatingly slow, sitting through the whole thing will leave you with a feeling of catharsis afterwards.

Loosely speaking it is science fiction, but it is more interested in exploring new concepts than new planets or life-forms. If anything, I would compare it to the slower parts of 2001: A Space Odyssey, although really it is like nothing I’ve ever seen before. A Scientist, A Writer, and their “Stalker” guide are breaking in to “The Zone,” a realm that mysteriously appeared one day in the middle of the city. Once they get there they will try to reach a room in the Zone’s center, a room wherein the hidden-most desire of anyone who enters is immediately fulfilled. But rather than the plot, Tarkovsky mostly focuses on the conversations the three men have along the way, many of which concern the finer points of human destiny and seem like they could have been included in Notes from the Underground. Usually I don’t like such ventures in film, but here the ideas are so novel and conveyed with such intensity that I couldn’t help being drawn in. It helps, of course, that all of this is beautifully shot and passionately acted.

I think the key to understanding why Tarkovsky made the film the way he did comes in the midst of one of the Writer’s soliloquies. Talking about his uneasy relationship with his many admirers, he looks directly into the camera and says that they just want “to gobble” up his works one after the other—but they don’t want “to know.” I appreciated this, since I myself usually have the tendency to wolf down one movie after the next. It’s worth remembering that great film can bring you knowledge, and especially the best kind of it, which is self-knowledge. If you have a great deal of patience (and I mean a great deal!), then you will be rewarded by watching this.