SOLARIS (1972) A Film Review by Ted Prigge Copyright 1998 Ted Prigge
Director: Andrei Tarkovsky Writers: Friederich Gorenstein and Andrei Tarkovsky (based on the novel by Stainislaw Lem) Starring: Donatas Banionis, Natalya Bondarchuk, Jüri Järvet, Anatoli Solonitsyn, Nikolai Grinko, Sos Sarkissian, Vladislav Dvorjetzki
Andrei Tarkovsky's "Solaris" was advertised as "Russia's answer to '2001'" when it first came out in 1972, bringing many people to believe that this was the film that held the answers to the film, that expanded and made sense out of it. This is completely untrue once you see the film, although one could see that the two films have many things in common: they're both, what some people call, "cinematic poems;" both deal with space and alien intelligence in more reserved and complex fashions; and both are leisurely paced with long periods of silence and little going on in terms of action.
But this is where the films' similarities end. After all, "2001" dealt with the dehumanization of man; "Solaris" takes the opposite view, showing the humanity of man. Instead of dealing with the way technology has crippled evolution, and turned us into inhuman droids, "Solaris" takes on an independent from "2001" theme: the way that memories haunt us, and the way that human contact is only a form of perception. The film doesn't try to be a "Russian '2001'"; it tries to be a completely different film.
"Solaris," based on a science fiction novel by Stainislaw Lem, deals with what would probably be a trite episode of "Star Trek" (pick a version): a space station hovers over a planet called Solaris that is filled completely with an ocean. It is believed that the ocean is the brain of the planet, and that the ocean is basically the alien lifeform. But some people who have come back from the station claim that they saw visions that materialized and haunted them, and all but three scientists remain there when the story begins.
In the film's opening scene, we are introduced to Kris Kelvin (Donatas Banionis), a psychologist/cosmonaut who has been chosen to go to the space station to discover what has happened and make a decision to either continue working at Solaris or leave (which means they may destroy the planet). After a 40 minute introduction to Kris, the plot, and to his family, including his dying father (Nikolai Grinko), Kris gives a heart-felt goodbye, and he's off to the station.
Upon arriving there, he discovers that his one friend who worked there, Gibarian (Sos Sarkissian), has committed suicide, and has left him a bizarre video message that sort of explain his actions. He also finds the other two scientists - Snauth and Sartorious (Jüri Järvet and Anatoli Solonitsyn, respectively) - acting really weird and reclusive. Soon enough, Kris sees weird images, such as his wife from years ago, Khari (Natalya Bondarchuk), who committed suicide years ago, who then materializes and tries to live life with him like it was before.
Of course, she's not the real Khari as much as it is a materialization thereof. The fake Khari is unable to recall any memories that the real Khari had, and merely looks just like her and perhaps even acts a bit like her. However, she is only able to live when she is in his presence, or else she dies or commits suicide, only to come back to life shortly afterwards. She soon becomes Kris' second chance, and he soon begins to think of her as an entirely different person than the real Khari, given a chance to love again.
The film deeply explores these themes, and actually goes beyond the realm of being merely a cool sci-fi flick, becoming an existential exploration of humanity and the ways that memories can be frightening and painful, but also can be soothing and warming. Watching Kris lie with his dead wife's fake "guest" all day while the other scientists complain that he isn't doing anything is one of the saddest and unnerving things in cinema because after all, don't we have a point in our lives we wish we could re-live so that we could take as much advantage of it? It's the fact that this film evokes universal deep emotions and does it without insulting our intelligence that makes this a truly haunting experience.
Tarkovsky has been called a "cinematic poet" by so many critics that I won't even try and be original by saying that he is. But I will say that he is definitely one of the best directors of mise-en-scene and shot development that I have ever seen, up there with Kubrick, Welles, Ophuls, and Bergman. Shots aren't there to just show the story but are crafted to evoke deep feelings, and give a sense of hypnotic mysticism. The opening shot of the reeds flowing in the water is a gorgeously simple shot, and it's the simplicity that really makes the shots the most effective. In fact, everything else has a very minimalistic yet extremely deep feel to them, noted as early on in the simple opening credits with Bach's "F Minor Choral Prelude" playing somberly in the background, giving the film its unique feel.
Tarkovsky also tells his story at a very leisurely pace, much like, say, Kurbick. I imagine that the story by Lem is perhaps 100 pages, if that, but Tarkovsky turns it into a 167-minute film, filled with long shots, extremely long scenes of very little going on, and various other techniques to make everything last longer than a typical director would allow. Yet all of these never result in boredom, and the entire film has a hypnotic feel to it. You know the kind of long scenes where very little happens, and the actors speak in long, hushed tones, and you just sit there, staring at it, afraid to breathe, waiting for the director to screw up and ruin the experience? These kinds of shots, filled with all sorts of complex layering that requires complete audience attention, seem to be Tarkovsky's forte.
While the science fiction and special effects take a back-seat to the themes and ideas postulated by the film, this film nevertheless is really cool to look at. The space station itself is a pretty atmospheric locale, and the white background of Kris's chambers creates a cool-looking and almost lonely feeling for the disturbed character. We never see much of the technology though (it works here), and we only get glimpses of the planet they're on, seeing that everything is a gorgeously wavy ocean. The cinematogaphy is absolutely gorgeous, perfectly accenting Tarkovsky's complex shots, and making this just one of the better-looking films in film history.
The final shot of "Solaris" is one of the most haunting final shots in film history, bringing the film's themes and ideas to a dramatic and poignant close, and also allowing some very heart-felt emotion to pour in. It's the fact that we can all (probably, I hope) identify with Kris's connection to the past that makes "Solaris" a real experience, not only in the cinematic sense of the word, but also in the emotional one. We all have done something that we regretted afterwards, and there's at least one moment we wish we could live over again with the knowledge we have today. That's what "Solaris" is about. I'm not knocking other sci-fi films that deal with general fear and horror (like the "Alien" series), but because "Solaris" dives deep into the questions of humanity, and puts that focus in the forefront, it is, along with "2001," the best science fiction film ever made.
MY RATING (out of 4): ****
Homepage at: http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Hills/8335/
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews