FAQ

The midget is Sartorius' particular guilt, possibly the result of some kind of biological experiment gone wrong, or someone he abused.

B&W film is used for scenes that represent memory or the unconscious mind, including dreams and sleep.

"Ich ruf' zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ" Composed by Johann Sebastian Bach, BWV 639

The original music (played throughout the film) was composed by Edvard Artemyev.

The freeway footage was shot in Tokyo and Osaka. The aerial night composite shot is of various sections of Tokyo.

Suicide by lethal injection.

In the ending of the video record he left for Kris Kelvin, Gibarian is seen with a syringe in his hand, then leaving. According to Lem's original novel, he hid in a wardrobe closet and injected poison there.

This happens after the scene where Chris shows Khari a home video of his youth. Snaut enters Chris' room and can be seen wrapping his hands in bandages. He also mentions that the rate of regeneration has slowed down, and that there will be no more apparitions for 2 or 3 hours.

In an earlier scene, an unidentified person can be seen lying in a hammock inside Snaut's quarters, implying this is a Visitor created by the planet. It is a possibility that Snaut killed or wounded this Visitor, and noticed that the Visitor did not heal or regenerate as quickly as normal. Maybe he wounded his hand in the process.

Another possibility not explicitly stated is that this Snaut is a Visitor himself. Several scenes before, on a suggestion by Dr. Sartorius, Chris did a blood test on Khari and noticed that the blood kept regenerating, as proof that she is a manifestation of the planet and not a real human. Perhaps Dr. Snaut tried it on himself by making a cut on his hand, and may have found out that his blood and wound were starting to regenerate, proving that he himself is a Visitor as well. It could explain why in the beginning, Snaut asks Chris if he is sure whether he himself is real. In the 2002 remake this theory is explored with more depth.

Water is a common image for Tarkovsky. It is found in nearly all his films in different forms such as rain inside buildings, stagnant pools most frequently inside ruined buildings, small streams, running water from faucets or standing water in a wash basin, waterfalls inside ruined buildings, or even large sentient bodies of water (oceans or lakes) as in Solaris. Sometimes the water is implied to be contaminated, sometimes cleansing.

Tarkovsky uses water symbolically, often to mean redemption. In Solaris, the sequence with rainwater pouring inside Kris's father's home (and on the man's head which he is apparently oblivious to) in the final scene, is a symbol for Kris's redemption just before he prostrates himself before his father begging forgiveness.

In a more pragmatic or commonplace sense, the rain could be a reminder that the house is not real. The "happy ending" is just an illusion, just like the human apparitions aboard the space station. Rain inside a building identifies the house as a creation of the alien consciousness which is itself represented by an ocean of churning water on the planet. Throughout the film, this "intelligence" is not always accurate in its representations. An example would be Hari's dress, which cannot be unbuttoned nor removed, and Hari herself, who has factual memories, but not the emotions normally associated with such memories. The rain inside the house is just another mistake the alien makes.