Two Films That Taught Me to Think Differently: Tarkovsky's Stalker and Solaris

Stalker (1979) and Solaris (1972) are not normal movies. They're 3-hour exercises in patience. Long takes. Minimal dialogue. Scenes that unfold in real-time.

What Makes Tarkovsky Different (And Why It Matters)

Tarkovsky called his approach "sculpting in time." Instead of quick cuts and constant stimulation, he forces you to sit with a single shot for minutes at a time. Water dripping. Wind blowing through grass. A character staring into the distance.

Here's what I learned: The discomfort you feel watching these films is the same discomfort you feel when you try to focus deeply on anything. Your brain wants the dopamine hit. It wants the next scene, the next notification, the next thing.

Tarkovsky doesn't give it to you.

Stalker: The Power of Unanswered Questions

The premise: Three men journey through a mysterious restricted area called "the Zone" to reach a room that supposedly grants your deepest wish.

The catch: The film never tells you if the Zone is real, if the room works, or what any of it means.

What I Took Away

Lesson 1: Not everything needs an answer. In work and life, we're obsessed with closure. We want the solution, the hack, the five-step framework. Stalker taught me that sometimes the most valuable experiences are the ones that leave you with questions.

Lesson 2: The journey transforms you more than the destination. The three characters argue philosophy for three hours. By the end, they never reach the room—but they're fundamentally changed. Sound familiar? Most of my best projects have been like this. The outcome mattered less than who I became building it.

Lesson 3: Stillness is a feature, not a bug. The film has 10-minute sequences with almost no dialogue. Just ambient sound. At first, it's excruciating. Then something shifts. You notice details. You think deeper thoughts. You enter a flow state that's impossible to reach when you're constantly stimulated.

Practical application: I like to think of scheduling "Tarkovsky blocks" in my day where I work on a single problem with zero interruptions. Phone off. Slack closed. Just me and the work. The quality of output is 10x better than my fragmented "productive" days.

Solaris: Confronting What You've Been Avoiding

The premise: A psychologist travels to a space station orbiting a mysterious planet. The planet starts manifesting physical versions of the crew's deepest regrets and memories.

For the main character, it's his dead wife.

What I Took Away

Lesson 1: You can't outrun your past. The protagonist literally travels to space to escape his guilt, and the universe forces him to confront it anyway. I've tried to "optimize" my way out of difficult emotions. It doesn't work. Solaris taught me that some things require sitting with discomfort, not solving it.

Lesson 2: Memory is unreliable—and that's okay. The "wife" in the film is a reconstruction based on the protagonist's memories. She's both real and not real. This messed with my head in the best way. How much of my own narrative is accurate vs. reconstructed? How many of my "truths" are just stories I've told myself?

Lesson 3: Earth is already miraculous. The film opens with long shots of nature—rain, grass, water. Later, there's a five-minute sequence of driving through a highway tunnel. Tarkovsky is saying: you don't need to go to space to find meaning. It's already here. You're just not paying attention.

Practical application: Sit and notice. Take a couple minutes to observe your surroundings without judgment.