Page - 51 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 06/01

In Sculpting in Time, Tarkovsky ruminates on the vain journey to the Room by pointing to a scene after his characters’ return to the outside world, the scene in the café, where the Writer and the Professor are suddenly confronted “with a puzzling, to them incomprehensible, phenomenon”.26 This is the arrival of the Stalker’s wife, “who has been through untold miseries because of her husband, and has had a sick child by him; but she continues to love him with the same selfless, unthinking devo- tion as in her youth.”27 For Tarkovsky, this encounter with the loving presence of the Stalker’s wife is at odds with the notion of seeking the Room to satiate one’s desire. Tarkovsky writes that “her love and her devotion are that final miracle which can be set against the unbelief, cynicism, moral vacuum poisoning the modern world, of which both the Writer and the Scientist are victims.”28 Confronted with love, the cynical notions of desire that trouble the characters’ faith, as in Porcupine’s story, dissolve. In light of Tarkovsky’s comments on this scene, the film’s triad of desire, hope, and belief can be considered differently. Perhaps it is the end of desire that marks the beginning of love in the film: the unsatisfactory ending of the quest to seek the Room ends and the possibility of love begins. As Tarkovsky puts it, “in Stalker I felt for the first time the need to indicate clearly and unequivocally the supreme value by which, as they say, man lives and his soul does not want”.29 In other words, true existential wellbeing, the spiritual healing Tarkovsky describes, is the alleviation of desire. Moreover, Tarkovsky intimates that the expression of love in the film precip- itates the renewal of hope: “In Stalker I make some sort of complete statement: namely that human love alone is – miraculously – proof against the blunt assertion that there is no hope for the world.”30 And, in turn, he suggests that the encounter with the Stalker’s wife restores belief in the film’s characters: “Even though out- wardly their journey ends in fiasco, in fact each of the protagonists acquires some- thing of inestimable value: faith.”31 Perhaps, then, Tarkovsky sets desire and love in contrast. Turovskaya captures this contrast when she writes about the film’s penultimate scene. This scene, the last containing the Stalker himself, shows his wife caring for him in the midst of his despair, comforting his fears, undressing him, and putting him to bed. It is a remarkably tender sequence and, afterwards, the viewer is invited to participate in the intimacy of the scene as the Stalker’s wife looks directly into the camera and 26 Tarkovsky 1986, 198. 27 Tarkovsky 1986, 198. 28 Tarkovsky 1986, 198. 29 Tarkovsky 1986, 198. 30 Tarkovsky 1986, 199. 31 Tarkovsky 1986, 199. 50 | James Lorenz www.jrfm.eu 2020, 6/1, 37–52