If I were to be Queen...

The strength of weakness - Tarkovsky

"Let everything that's been planned come true. Let them believe. And let them have a laugh at their passions. Because what they call passion is not brave emotional energy but just a friction between their souls and the outside world. And most important, let them believe in themselves, let them be helpless like children, because weakness is a great thing, and strength is nothing. When a man is just born, he is weak and flexible, when he dies, he is hard and insensitive. When a tree is growing, it's tender and pliant, but when it's dry and hard, it dies. Hardness and strength are death's companions. Pliancy and weakness are expressions of the freshness of being. Because what has hardened will never win." - extract from Tarkovsky's Stalker.







I've never seen a film so like my rural, industrial ruins dreamworld in my life. Who knew it lay in mystical Russian sci-fi - but I'm very glad it did... It makes sense strangely... And it reminded me of my Grandfather - the most gentle, kind, strong and spiritual man I've ever had the honour to be connected to...