Solaris
Year:
1972
Directed by:
Andrei Tarkovsky
Rated:
PG
Country:
Soviet Union
Runtime:
2 hr. 45 min.
Production Company:
Creative Unit of Writers & Cinema Workers
Written by:
Stanislaw Lem (source novel)
Andrei Tarkovsky
Fridikh Gorenshtein
Starring:
Donatas Banionis
Natalya Bondarchuk
Jüri Järvet
Vladislav Dvorzhetsky
Similar Films:
Solaris (2002)
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
An existential masterpiece for those with patience.
Here is some advice for anyone watching Solaris for the first time: Get through the opening credits, and then watch the first short scene. We start with a close-up of beautiful reeds swaying just beneath the surface of a lake. Then an orange leaf floats by. After a moment, the camera moves past some bushes, then inches its way up a person standing in these bushes until it reaches the face of our main character, Kris Kelvin, who is doing nothing but standing and watching the plant life. If you are not drawn in by this, turn the movie off and move on with your day. If you do find satisfaction in this little scene, keep going because this sci-fi romance mystery is a profound and moving meditation on life, love, and humanity for those with enough patience to appreciate an experience so slow and contemplative that much of it passes in without a word.
The film revolves around Kelvin's trip to the Solaris space station, a station orbiting a mysterious ocean planet that is said to be sentient. There are three scientists stationed there, and one has killed himself. When Kelvin arrives at the run-down station, the two remaining scientists are reclusive and generally acting strange, telling him things such as he shouldn't be afraid of whatever he might see. He soon learns that the planet is capable of materializing objects, mostly humans, from the conscious of those orbiting it. Waking up to see his long-deceased wife, Hari, next to him, Kelvin is now in a world that demands a new analysis of the human experience.
The first question that arises is the legitimacy of Hari and her existence. She is not at all a hallucination, since everyone else can see and touch her, too. She is a real, physical being. She is not, however, made up of atoms. Her structure is based on neutrinos, which will collapse without Solaris' stabilizing power. Kelvin, though fully aware of her being a construct, cannot help loving her as his own true wife since she looks and acts just the same as the memory from which she was created. She also loves him back. One of the scientists believes that she should be treated as a test subject since she is not a "real" person. Performing an autopsy on her, he says, would be "more humane than testing on rabbits." Kelvin of course disagrees. The arguments among Kelvin and the two scientists indirectly cause us to question what constitutes legitimate intelligent life. This also creates an interesting question about love. There has been plenty of literature that asks what love is, but this film takes it a step further by asking what the object of love is. Hari is not a human, but Kelvin loves her nonetheless. So, what is it that he loves? Her likeness? Her personality? We often think of loving someone for who they are deep down inside, but Hari deep down inside is arguably nothing, and Kelvin still loves her.
Pulling the movie away from a stiff philosophical pondering is the emotional depth of the characters. These are not just scientists talking metaphysics; they are humans (except, of course, Hari, strictly speaking), meaning they have feelings, preconceptions, and flaws. Kelvin is torn between the horror and the joy of having his once-dead wife living in front of him again, and Hari is distressed at the fact that she herself is nothing more than a construct. Indeed, there is a lot of silent time spent with Kelvin and Hari simply holding each other in thought. One of the film's more memorable moments occurs when the station goes to zero gravity for thirty seconds. The two are holding each other at this time, staring off, and when everything begins floating around, they are together physically separated from the rest of the world. This puts them momentarily in a purely idiosyncratic existence, where they can simply be together and watch the rest of the world without any connection to it. This moment allows them, for better or worse, to examine themselves and their love without relation to the rest of the world. These fully-dimensioned characters allow us to relate to the story as intellectuals and as humans, and it gives us an emotional investment in the events.
The slowly paced events help with our understanding of the characters', particularly Kelvin's, feelings. As opposed to being told these feelings, we follow the Kelvin through the beginnings and the aftermaths of each happening, walking down a hallway or simply sitting and thinking. We experience everything with him. This allows the viewer sufficient (though some would say much more than sufficient) time to prepare for whatever might occur and, afterward, to reflect on what happened. This is much easier than having to cram each little event into your memory and consider them after the movie is over. This movie is not about showy events, anyway; it's about the moral dilemmas that these events bring to light. Those who consider this film too slow to enjoy probably would not have enjoyed it if it was shorter anyway because then it would have been a second-rate sci-fi mystery with no moral consequence or emotional resonance.
