On the question of what Tarkovsky's Stalker (1979) is actually about and why several answers are all correct.

Stalker is based on a science fiction novella by the Strugatsky brothers about a guide — the Stalker — who leads people through a mysterious restricted Zone to a Room that supposedly grants the visitor's deepest wish.

This is the premise. The film is not primarily about the premise.

Stalker can be read as a film about faith — the Stalker believes in the Zone the way a priest believes in God, without rational evidence, against the mockery of rationalists. The Writer and the Professor, who accompany the Stalker, represent materialist skepticism, and the film dramatizes the tension between faith and skepticism without resolving it in either direction.

Stalker can be read as a film about the Soviet Union — the Zone as the promised land that the apparatus of the state has restricted access to, the Stalker as the figure who navigates the gap between official reality and actual experience.

Stalker can be read as a film about cinema itself — the director who leads audiences toward an experience that requires the surrender of rational control, the tension between the destination and the journey.

All three readings are supported by the text. Tarkovsky was asked which was correct and declined to choose.