Stalker

What I wanted to do in 'Arrival' was trying to create that kind of mood of loneliness, this kind of poetic quality that you can find sometimes in Tarkovsky. For me, ‘2001’ and ‘Stalker’ are the two main inspirations for ‘Arrival’.

I'm a big admirer of Tarkovsky's work, especially Stalker and Solaris. What I tried to put into Ghost in the Shell was that atmosphere, that profound sense of loneliness and contemplation you find in his films. Not so much the narrative, but the spiritual quality.

Ghost in the Shell in turn shaped 2 films

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But with the way Denis shows this hardening process in Beau Travail, the movie I was actually reminded of was Andrei Tarkovksy’s Stalker

Beau travail in turn shaped 2 films

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We talked about films like Stalker for the feeling of decay and spiritual wasteland.

Children of Men in turn shaped 3 films

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Tarkovsky's 'Stalker' is like a pilgrimage. It's about finding meaning in the journey, and the land itself feels alive. I try to bring that sense of mystery and living landscape into my films, like 'Uncle Boonmee'.

Tarkovsky's 'Stalker' taught me to trust in the power of the image and the duration, and these are principles I apply to my films, like 'Norte'.

I revisited a lot of Mexican films, particularly from the Golden Age of Mexican Cinema, like Buñuel’s Los Olvidados to kind of remember the texture and the sounds of Mexico City.

Christopher Nolan has publicly acknowledged that Satoshi Kon, a Japanese animator, made Paprika four years before Inception with the same architecture: dreams folding inside dreams, a spinning object that tests whether you've returned to reality, cityscapes that collapse and rebuild according to the logic of the unconscious. Kon did it on a fraction of the budget. Paprika is on MUBI and is one of the great science fiction films of the 21st century. Tarkovsky's Stalker is the deeper ancestor: a journey into a forbidden zone where your true desires are what you're really afraid of.