Perfect in Weakness: Faith in Tarkovsky's Stalker (Reel Spirituality Monograph)

Three men go on a risky journey through a forbidden Zone in search of fulfillment. They fail. They come home. The end. The plot of Tarkovskys Stalker is a joke. Taking its title from 2 Corinthians Perfect in Weakness explores Stalker as a ludic parable. And the subject of this parable is faith. Faith as folly faith as a dangerous last-ditch attempt to attain the unattainable. To fail to fail again and to carry on regardless. Stalker is about crossing borders boundaries conventions. To transgress to disrupt to deconstruct is the dark impulse behind Tarkovskys personal vision. It is also the illicit revolutionary message at the heart of the gospel: tear down this temple and have faith. Like one of Deleuzes rhizomes or David Tracys fragments Perfect in Weakness aims to throw out thoughts ideas and connections in unexpected (even unintended) directions drawing new and unlikely texts into the field of film theology--Patristic thought Christian Neoplatonism and Renaissance literature. Perfect in Weakness suggests we see cinema itself as the ultimate apocalyptic art form--letting light into the darkness and then throwing it on a screen. Heber-Percys illuminating scholarship boundary-dissolving methodology and academic poetics deliver a fascinating journey into the soul of Tarkovskys Stalker. Perfect in Weakness not only challenges and enriches our understanding of this mesmerizing cinematic achievement it provides a unique appreciation of the nature of conversion and the life religious. For Heber-Percy the film is a heartfelt hymn whose meaning is in the conversation it provokes. This book is a provocative fecund and moving contribution to that conversation and to that meaning. --Britt Harrison Lecturer Goldsmiths University of London The unexamined life is not worth living and neither is the disconnected one. Colin Heber-Percys integration of film ancient wisdom and Christian theology makes a revealing and profoundly attractive account of contemporary spirituality. This is a book for explorers of what it is to be honest engaged and fully human. --Nicholas Holtam Bishop of Salisbury Deeply impressive Heber-Percys writing is deeply serious informed with passion but always he pursues his quest with a lightness of touch and playfulness. Here is an original thinker offering rigor and insight. --Madeleine Bunting writer and former associate editor of The Guardian Colin Heber-Percy is a fulltime screenwriter and a priest in the Church of England. His screenwriting work (mainly for television and mainly historical drama) has won many awards and been shown all over the world. He lectures and publishes on spirituality faith film and fiction.