Andrei Tarkovsky is well-known to students of cinema, and his name is frequently found in the mouths of other master filmmakers. Resembling literature, Tarkovsky's films take place in metaphysical spaces where memory and reality seemingly overlap. Among Tarkovsky's more celebrated films are "Ivan's Childhood," "Andrei Rublev," the 1972 sci-fi film "Solaris," and, most pertinent to Alex Garland, "Stalker."
"Stalker" is perhaps most notorious for its pace. Tarkovsky's trademark is long, sustained shots that can last for minutes at a time. "Stalker" run 161 minutes and had 142 shots, a miniscule amount when compared to the modern average (a 2017 film study found that the average number of shots in a feature film over the course of the previous two decades was 1,045). It tells the story of the title character (Alexander Kaidanovsky) who leads a writer (Anatoly Solonitsyn) and a professor (Nikolai Grinko) into a dangerous, unpopulated nature preserve called The Zone in order to find a magical room that grants wishes. It's dangerous to traverse The Zone, and much of "Stalker's" runtime is devoted to the character throwing a small, weighted bag ahead of them to check for "traps."
The mystery and the plot of "Stalker" fall into a vortex of the film's own downbeat melancholy. There is more in the way of conversation, explanation as to why each of these men want the wishes they do, and the dreams they have had. There is a Morphean quality to "Stalker," deliberately enticing the audience into a hazy, somnambulist stupor. Tarkovsky seems to be creating a half-subconscious space where dreams become the predominant logic. "Stalker" was not widely beloved upon its release, and the studio that released it — an adjunct of the Soviet government — criticized it for being too slow (Indeed, the first notable similarity between "Annihilation" and "Stalker" is that their respective producers hated them. In an article on Bright Lights Film, producer David Ellison was quoted, decrying the film, for being "too intellectual").
In the ensuing decades, "Stalker" has made its way onto lists of the best film ever made, even appearing on the Sight and Sound poll in 2012.