Solaris

Wow, what an experience my wife and I had tonight seeing "Solaris", based on a novel by one of my favorite science fiction writers, Stanislaw Lem. As we knew from reviews we had seen, it is a very long film at 165 minutes with many drawn-out but compelling scenes. Though it's a classic and has much to recommend it highly, I must admit that the first half I found a bit difficult to sit through - having just had a nice pasta dinner and some chocolate didn't help :-). It is such a complex film that it probably takes at least two or three viewings to feel that one has understood much of it.

The basic story is that a Russian spaceship in orbit around a planet has been sending back confusing status, and Kris Kelvin (Donatas Banionis) is sent to investigate. He finds out that the crew has been experimenting with sending pulses of radiation into the planet's vast ocean and are in turn manipulated by some sort of innate intelligence on the planet. "Guests" materialize on the ship, crafted from mental elements of the crews' minds.

The first night there, Kris himself wakes up to find his long-dead love Hari (Natalya Bondarchuk) by his side. The other two crew mates, scientists Dr. Snaut (Jüri Järvet) and Dr. Sartorius (Anatoli Solonitsyn) puncture any misconceptions that Kris may have by clarifying that "she" is not real, and invite Kris to try looking at a blood sample, which clearly is not human ("she" does "bleed" when hurt, but the "blood" can be easily wiped away). The scientists in fact want to experiment on sending an annihilation sacrificial pulse of radiation to the ocean below, and imply, it seems, an interest in using Hari for that purpose.

The film is unlike anything that I have seen before, and begs many philosophic questions about the nature of reality and existence, the meaning of love, time and timelessness, and much more. The sterile and very unnatural milieu of the spaceship, as well as the melancholic and minimalistic music and sound effects, make one despair for being in nature, and reflect on the early lakeside scenes. The ending (no spoilers here!) leaves room for interpretation and even understanding of just what happened. Hauntingly amazing.

This has to be one of the best science fiction movies ever produced. Not because it's filled with gee-whiz gizmos or creepy aliens (it isn't) but because it actually gives you something to think about besides "I wonder how much they spent on *that* shot". When I was a kid, I used to love reading sci-fi because it stimulated my imagination, but as I grew up (especially once "Star Wars" came out), I found that it was harder and harder to find anything remotely resembling imagination or mystery in the genre.

Well, this movie has restored my faith in what is possible to achieve under the guise of "sci-fi" (obviously, it's older than "Star Wars", but I didn't see it until years later, when I had basically written off the whole idea of science fiction movies). I saw it 10-15 years ago when it was re-released in the USA and liked it then, but seeing it again recently has convinced me that this is an all-time classic. As I said, it actually stimulates thought (rare enough in most sci-fi movies), but on top of that, it has a real and profound emotional impact that's far beyond what you find in most "dramas", let alone "kid stuff" like sci-fi. If this movie is intended to be an "answer" to "2001" (I'm not convinced that it is), the main contrast is that "Solaris" concerns itself with real human emotions, whereas the most interesting character in "2001" is the computer.

For those who complain that it's boring, just go see something else. You'll obviously never get it. If the opening shot of water and plant life didn't tip you off to the fact that this movie is intentionally paced a little bit more deliberately than, say, "Buckaroo Banzai", then you should go out and try to get some sort of clue before watching this movie. It's not boring... it's SLOW. It's *meant* to be slow. Some of the scenes exist solely to set a mood, not to advance the plot. If you can't handle that, then this isn't the movie or you. But if you're able to sit still for 3 hours without squirming, and if you're able to enjoy a movie without having every idea spelled out in giant neon letters, then you just might like "Solaris", and find that it haunts you for years to come.

It's tough to come into a film like "Solaris" without tremendous expectations after having heard for so long about its greatness. If you don't immediately feel like it's one of the best movies you've ever seen -- after hearing so many say it is -- you're either tempted to overcompensate and exaggerate how overrated it is out of a sense of defensiveness, or think something's wrong with you for being the only one not to "get it."

As with most movies that have been saddled with the word "greatness," I understand why "Solaris" is considered to be such a watershed movie and so revered by so many, but I have to admit that I didn't personally feel myself responding to it all that much. Maybe I would on a second (or third or fourth) viewing, but I can't say I'm very compelled to watch it again. It's cerebral and philosophical, which I expected, and a bit cold and emotionally uninvolving despite the fact that it's about almost nothing but human emotions and how we react to life's biggest mysteries. I didn't warm much to the characters or ever really think of them as individual human beings so much as necessary conduits for communicating the film's philosophical ruminations. Despite being set in the vast reaches of space, it's a claustrophobic movie, which I think is intentional. We never see space, only the cramped interiors of a spaceship, and that feels right, since the movie is more about the vast universe contained within Man's head than it is about the great physical universe beyond our solar system's borders.

What I liked most about "Solaris" is that it suggests that Man isn't really developed enough to handle breakthroughs in our understanding of the larger universe. Given the chance to explore space and engage with elements beyond our comprehension, the characters in the movie instead spend all of their time ruminating over and regretting the people they left behind on Earth and the mistakes they made there. It's almost like Mankind turns to solving giant huge mysteries as a distraction from the fact that we're not capable of cracking the lesser, more mundane mysteries of everyday life, like love, commitment, and dependence on one another.

"Solaris" does have one chilling and memorable ending, I'll give it that. If we go poking around in what we don't understand, it seems to say, we may very well find ourselves unable to return to what we do.

Grade: A-

Haven't seen any other Tarkofsky. I hear that this is the film he is least fond of. I intend to see more of him.

As some other reviewer said, I had the feeling through the first one hour or so that some scenes went on for too long, or seemed a bit unnecessary and that it was too slow for the message to clearly be presented. But after a while, the slow pacing DID have a positive impact on the context of the film and on the "dialogue" between the film and the viewer. Anyway, after its plain & simple beginning, when the "action" is taken to the space station things get more and more interesting. No spoon-feeding here, as well. If you want all the mysteries in a film to be solved and explained, then you might not wanna see this, because the film is up to the viewer to think and dive in deep. Anyway, it ended up satisfying and leaving one in thoughts.

I am so glad I got to see this fabulous thoughtful movie. It's full of nice visuals and context. A recommendation to all who are fed up with Hollywood crap - but even Hollywood geeks could find many in this, if they can tolerate with the slow pace...

It's now been some years since I last watched it. Still, I can't get rid of the impressions of emptiness, absurdity and impossibility to understand (the world, and the human mind) that this movie left into me. It can be violent to your mind, without showing a single violent image (by the way, I often see this movie as a counterpart to Clockwork Orange, even more than to 2001). It can stun you, with ten or twenty minutes of incomprehensible silence. It can deprive you of any certainty in the laws of nature - such as, people only die once - and thus leave you vulnerable and naked.

I know that many friends to whom I've shown this move did not understand it. So I'm not saying you'll like it. But this is possibly the best (non-action) sci-fi movie ever made.

Watch it at night, alone, when everything out of your home is dark, silent, and cold.