The Rules. For the journey. Across the threshold; a moment of absolute transition.
I am reading Geoff Dyers: Zone: a Book about a Film about a Journey to a Room (2012). This may already have been obvious to everyone.
The film is Stalker (1979) by Andrei Tarkovsky.
The book is a kind of summary: “Do you think I would be spending my time summarising the action of a film almost devoid of action… if I was capable of writing anything else?”, Geoff Dyer writes. He says he saw the film when he was in his 20’s, and that he thinks about it a great deal.
The Trolley Sequence: is an examplar of the “(N+2) aesthetic. “A long magical sequence of three men clanking towards the zone” is described at length by Geoff Dyers from Pp 44 – 56. I have not seen the film and have to rely on his words for this.
The “clanking” denotes their particular kind of extended horizontal journey required to enter the zone. Dyer describes the room or installation as a “refuge” or “sanctuary”, and he may also employ the word “pilgrimage” – I cannot recall.
As for older men travelling on this kind of horizontal journey there are memory gaps and natural pauses – “sites of decayed meaning” as described by Geoff Dyer (P 45). These are not the same gaps as occur due to the flicking of a reduced attention span. They should equally not be thought of as heightened experiences.
On our timeline of “(N+2)”, it was the strong horizontality of the train journey we made in October 2006 across the Great Alföld from Bucharest to Novosad and then to Belgrade. In the book/film/journey the Writer also takes a plastic bag with him.
Stalker, Writer, and Philospher… are the names given for the three travellers in the film/book/journey. The place or position of Stalker is ambiguous, although to Dyer his vulnerable presence is always deeply affecting . For any number (“N”) watchers or readers of this “(N+2)” aesthetic the spectacle requires at least these two: The Philosopher and the Writer. The Philosopher carries a backpack. It is his collection of everything (after all these digital days a backpack is good for the entire contents of the British Museum, Library and much, much more). It is his collection of everything, and like all Collectors he hates to be parted from it. When he loses his backpack, he insists on going back for it (which is not permitted: no going back is allowed in the zone). Nevertheless he is reunited with his backpack later as if by a miracle.
The Philosopher holds on to his collection. By contrast the Writer is always trying to get rid of his. He gives away his books and throws away his bag in the book/film/journey, but again it returns to him mysteriously later. In other words, these two, who are both strangely familiar to us, are men who in their different ways are required to hold on to their collections.