“The function of the image, as Gogol said, is to express life itself, not ideas or arguments about life. It does not signify life or symbolise it, but embodies it, expressing its uniqueness” (Tarkovsky 11). Borrowing this definition from Gogol, it seems that Tarkovsky attempts at rearticulating the Deleuzian ultimate delineation of cinema from the system of language. That is why I feel always uneasy about interpreting his films. In fact, I always limit myself to a precise summary of the plot and a stylistic analysis while avoiding discussion about meaning. For example, reading Stalker simply in terms of political allegory in the Soviet context of the 1970s will leave so many other themes aside that are, nonetheless, there. Every time I pick up just one meaning from his film, it makes me feel like I deny millions of others because his images “stretches out into infinity, and leads to the absolute” (Tarkovky 104). How can I describe the absolute in this case? My guess is that the essay about Tarkovky’s images should also bring up something that “stretches out into infinity”, so the critic is bound to create something and not criticize or demolish anything in itself. Art cinema at large is a unique chance for film studies scholars to become an artist by leaving behind the bookkeeping of formal analysis.