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We can express our feelings regarding the world around us either by poetic or by descriptive means. I prefer to express myself metaphorically. Let me stress: metaphorically, not symbolically. A symbol contains within itself a definite meaning, certain intellectual formula, while metaphor is an image. An image possessing the same distinguishing features as the world it represents. An image — as opposed to a symbol — is indefinite in meaning. One cannot speak of the infinite world by applying tools that are definite and finite. We can analyse the formula that constitutes a symbol, while metaphor is a being-within-itself, it’s a monomial. It falls apart at any attempt of touching it.

An image cannot be a symbol in my opinion. Whenever an image is turned into a symbol, the thought becomes walled in so to speak, it can be fully deciphered. That’s not what image is. A symbol is not yet an image. Although image cannot be explained, it expresses truth to the end… Its meaning remains unknown. I was asked once what the bird on boy’s head in The Mirror meant. But any time I attempt to explain, I notice everything loses its meaning, it acquires a completely different sense than intended, moves away from its rightful place. I could only say a bird would not come to an evil man but that’s not good enough. A true image is an abstraction, it cannot be explained, it only transmits truth and one can only comprehend it in one’s own heart. Because of that it’s impossible to analyse a work of art by utilising its intellectual significance.

I am an enemy of symbols. Symbol is too narrow a concept for me in the sense that symbols exist in order to be deciphered. An artistic image on the other hand is not to be deciphered, it is an equivalent of the world around us. Rain in Solaris is not a symbol, it is only rain which at certain moment has particular significance to the hero. But it does not symbolise anything. It only expresses. This rain is an artistic image. Symbol for me is something too complicated.

I am constantly being asked what this or that means in my films. It’s unbearable! An artist does not have to be accountable for his intentions. I did not do any deep thinking about my work. I don’t know what my symbols mean. I only desire to induce feelings, any feelings, in viewers. People always try to find “hidden” meanings in my films. But wouldn’t it be strange to make a film while striving to hide one’s thoughts? My images do not signify anything beyond what they are… We do not know ourselves that well: sometimes we express forces which cannot be grasped by any ordinary measure.

Mysterious elements in my films? I think people somehow got the idea that everything on screen should be immediately understandable. In my opinion events of our everyday lives are much more mysterious than those we can witness on screen. If we attempted to recall all events, step by step, that took place during just one day of our life and then showed them on screen, the result would be hundred times more mysterious than my film Stalker. Audiences got used to simplistic drama. Whenever a moment of realism appears on screen, a moment of truth, it is immediately followed by voices declaring it “confusing.” Many think of Stalker as a science fiction film. But this film is not based on fantasy, it is realism on film. Try to accept its content as a record of one day in lives of three people, try to see it on this level and you’ll find nothing complex, mysterious, or symbolic in it.