Arvo Iho: The man who took Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky to the 'Zone'

Professor Arvo Iho, a reputed filmmaker, teaches direction at Tallinn University’s Baltic Film & Media School these days. He cut his teeth in the late 70s under the tutelage of legendary Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky and was with him on the sets of his celebrated allegorical science fiction film, Stalker. The movie traces the travels of three men passing through a mysterious and forbidden territory called the ‘Zone’ in quest of a magic room with powers to fulfil one’s secret wishes. Tarkovsky allowed the young Iho to privately capture the mood of the Stalker production on camera. His images on the ‘Shooting of Stalker’ are now being exhibited at Estonia’s Tallinn Film Museum and at the Russian museum in St. Petersburg.

In an exclusive interview to Kalyan Parbat, Iho reminisces about his formative years with Tarkovsky, his impressions and memories from the sets of Stalker. Edited excerpts:

Q: What is your earliest memory of Andrei Tarkovsky?
A: It is secretly watching Tarkovsky and his then cinematographer, Georgi Rerberg, at work on a new film they were shooting back in 1974 called A Bright, Bright Day. It eventually became his autobiographical masterpiece, Mirror, a beautiful but complex film. I was a student at VGIK (also Tarkovsky’s alma mater) then and had come to Mosfilm Studio in Moscow for my practical term. I remember being fascinated by the elaborate sets Tarkovsky had created… they were so real, so life-like. The quality of the textures in those sets gave an impression that a real family was living in those rooms for over 10 years. Rerberg’s lighting system was unique, too, in that his seemingly strong light sources never hit the actors.


(Tarkovsky literally praying his actors deliver a particularly tricky sequence)

Q: What was the genesis of your association with Tarkovsky?
A: After graduation, I came to Tallinn Film Studios to shoot my first features. Call it pure coincidence or luck, Tarkovsky had been invited to play artistic advisor to three budding filmmakers, including me. Though I had developed a working rapport, I got really close when he asked me one day to show him possible locations for his new film, Stalker. I learnt his original location of choice in Turkmenistan had been devastated in an earthquake. So he was in Estonia to find a new one quickly, but his requirements were very precise, and at the same time, somewhat strange.

Q: You mean you helped Tarkovsky actually find the mysterious ‘Zone,’ which is the setting of Stalker?
A: Indeed, but it was a daunting task. He wanted a location that would be very different from the surrounding landscape. One that would subtly bear the signs of some past catastrophe. But he was very clear that those signs needed to be merely implied and remain mysterious.

After several hits and misses, Tarkovsky was thrilled when we found an old, abandoned power station on the banks of the river Jagala, some 24 km from Tallinn that perfectly matched his vision of the forbidden ‘Zone.’ The sight of those old rotten buildings with water dripping down excited him. As for me, I had his approval to spend my spare time on the Stalker shooting ground as an apprentice, observe the art of film-making and take photos of the shoot unofficially.

Q: You took some 30-odd photos of the Stalker shooting period. Which are the defining images?
A: There are several. But there is one image that is particularly striking, which captures Tarkovsky’s moment of hesitation, his sense of artistic doubt about the character of the ‘Stalker,’ the film’s chief protagonist played by actor Aleksander Kaidanovski. That image, in hindsight, anticipates a definitive change in the course of the film and its creation.


(​ Tarkovsky's sunshine daydream on the `Stalker' set.)

Q: What was the change?
A: Tarkovsky was no longer pleased with the original bandit or bully-like character of the ‘Stalker,’ who took people into the Zone and exploited them. In fact, he persuaded screenwriters Boris and Arkady Strugatsky to rewrite the character and transform the ‘Stalker’ into a humble and religious idealist.

As someone familiar with Tarkovsky’s work from that era, I suspect his inability to make a film based on Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s The Idiot before he started filming Stalker haunted him and the character of Prince Myshkin from that novel remained in his subconscious. That possibly became the basis of the transformed character of Stalker’s chief protagonist.

Q: Didn’t that create artistic tension between Tarkovsky and Kaidanovski, who was a real life tough guy and street fighter?
A: It certainly did. I remember Kaidanovski hated the transformed character of the ‘Stalker’ as his own nature was worlds apart from that of the quiet, humble and religious person that Tarkovsky now wanted him to play. But then Tarkovsky had his own way of dealing with actors. He often told me it is absolutely vital to ensure an actor does not know his future.


(​ Tarkovsky in conversation with Aleksander Kaidanovski, who played the `Stalker')

Q: You mean Tarkovsky liked to tap into the inner struggles, confusion and contradictions of actors to provoke superlative performances in cinema?
A: Exactly. He often said it is absolutely essential for a filmmaker to ensure an actor’s feelings are one, his thoughts another and his acting a third variant. In such a situation, he believed, an actor’s inner confusion and contradictions could unleash intense concentration and energy, reflected in such riveting performances as Kaidanovski’s in Stalker.

Q: Did he have intense conversations with his actors and actively direct them during the Stalker shoot ?
A : Tarkovsky always said an actor in the protagonist’s role must be an interesting personality, someone who instantly engages the director. And yes, he had lots of intense conversations, but the settings could be very unusual. I remember a night when Tarkovsky and Kaidanovski were put behind bars for loitering about the streets of Tallinn Old Town like drunken revellers. But inside jail, they started passionately discussing the works of German philosopher Immanuel Kant from around 3 am. Things got so intense and loud, that the other jail inmates couldn’t sleep, and the prison authorities were forced to release the two of them! (breaks into laughter).


(​ Tarkovsky's moment of doubt about the character of Stalker's chief protagonist)

Q: Why do you feel Stalker is so relevant today?
A: Tarkovsky had once told me Mirror was too complicated for ordinary people, especially for those unfamiliar with Russia’s history. Stalker’s theme that way is more universal. Anyone who has seen the film perhaps realises its timeless message that we humans do not know what we are deep inside; we do not know our own soul….

(The journalist was recently in Estonia on the invitation of Tallinn University and European Union)