1979 film by
Andrei Tarkovsky based on the short story
The Roadside Picnic by the
Brothers Strugatsky.
Isaac Asimov wrote the preface to the Strugatsky's
English language debut novel, a collection of short stories
also called "The Roadside Picnic".
The film is very surreal, very little dialog in a very long
film. Tarkovsky loves to take lingering shots to create a
mood, often very eerie and dark in this one. One of my
favorite films since I first saw it. Interestingly, a
poem gets read in the film "Kogda chelovek roditsya, on
slab i gibok, kogda derevo rostet ..." that is also quoted
in Russian at the beginning of a
Thomas Dolby song from
the same period. Coincidence? I believe (unconfirmed) that the poem is written by
Yevgeny Yevtushenko.
The film was shot, in part, near Chernobyl.