#116: Solaris

Solaris
Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky
Written by Fridrikh Gorenshtein and Andrei Tarkovsky (based on the novel by Stanislaw Lem)
Released March 20, 1972


In this blog's tradition of wildly swinging the door in the opposite direction, today we're going from the blatant stupidity of Jake Speed to a three hour Russian-directed and iceberg-slow meditation on loss, memory and psychosis.

I was drawn to this film after stumbling onto the 2002 remake, directed by Steven Soderbergh and starring George Clooney, on cable one night. While Soderbergh is definitely one of my favorite directors, he has had a few missteps. Therefore, I was unsurprised when I read reviews of his Solaris that found the movie boring and disappointing. Seeing it for myself, I was drawn in by the very things that reviewers were complaining about, most notably its lull-inducing, dreamlike pace.

In Tarkovsky's Solaris, a psychologist named Chris Kelvin is sent to a space station that has been observing a strange planet, the titular Solaris. Upon his arrival, the station (which has been observing the planet for decades but has been unable to make much scientific progress) is in disarray, with the few scientists who have remained in various states of paranoia or confusion. Kelvin also begins to catch glimpses of other inhabitants on the station, people who shouldn't be there -- and who would have had no way of getting there.

Is the station haunted? Is Solaris more than a planet?

There is a sequence about 35 minutes into the movie that is the kind of thing that will separate fans of traditional movie storytelling from those who have a little more patience with putting more thought into the images they are processing. It's essentially just a wordless segment of a character's car ride through streets and tunnels, but set to the sound effects of a space launch. Most viewers would watch this and think "Why is this in the movie?" Really, though, it's there to show how much this particular character's journey is still affecting him, so many years after he has returned to Earth. He's haunted, permanently scarred even, and this sequence is basically laying the groundwork for what we're about to see another character experience. In Hollywood, this sequence would have been hacked out, and probably wouldn't even end up on the DVD as bonus footage.

In the film, a psychologist named Kris Kelvin is sent to a space station that has been observing a strange planet, the titular Solaris. Upon his arrival, the station (which has been observing the planet for decades but has been unable to make much scientific progress) is in disarray, with the few scientists who have remained in various states of paranoia or confusion. Kelvin also begins to catch glimpses of other inhabitants on the station, people who shouldn't be there -- and who would have had no way of getting there. It's not long before Kelvin himself is experiencing visions.

Is he hallucinating? Is the station haunted? Is Solaris more than a planet?

Solaris is, in a strange way, a spiritual offspring of 2001. Rather than comment on man's progress, it's more about how mankind cannot cope with the things it cannot understand. There's also a sense that the further into the unknown mankind goes, the further into itself and its own mysteries it gazes. I'm tempted to go further, but I'm worried that my pontification will spoil the movie for anyone who might want to give it a shot.

It's unfortunate that Tarkovsky felt that Solaris was his least successful film, because it's a beautiful and unique thing to behold... one of those works of art that could really have made people feel different about the Soviets at its time of release and in the Cold War that followed.


For more on :
- Movie information at IMDB and Wikipedia.
- Buy the DVD.


The Solaris trailer: