Solaris (1972)
Country: USSR
Technical: col/scope 165m
Director: Andrei Tarkovsky
Cast: Natalya Bondarchuk, Donatas Banionis, Yuri Yarvet
Synopsis:
An astronaut sent to a space station orbiting a distant planet finds his dead wife there, and very much alive: the planet seems to exert an influence on the consciousness of those who come close to it, and assimilates their experience to itself.
Review:
So what if she isn't real, if she is dearer to me than all the science in the world?', the tormented Kris seems to be saying. The trouble is that his attitude before the rematerialised Hari - and certainly his father at the end - uncomfortably resembles that of supplicant. Should we be slaves to our past, especially when it is full of guilty feelings? 'We can do nothing about it,' Tarkovsky would retort. This slow-moving masterpiece is far less a science-fiction film than an examination of Tarkovsky's habitual concerns (family, nature, memory, divinity, the big questions), in spite of the fact that it appeared to come as a riposte to 2001: A Space Odyssey, from one visionary director to another. And so we have the mother figure, who is rather clearly configured as a doppelganger for the lover figure, an errant horse, a dog, and plentiful reference to the four elements, not least the Solaris ocean itself. The mundane practicalities of travel to and from the presumably distant planet are taken for granted, and the inconsistency of the premise that Man has been struggling to understand Solaristics for decades, with the twentieth century fashions and automobiles, is cavalierly glossed over. Instead we are concerned with psychology, morality, and the possibility that Solaris is a metaphor for God himself, the alpha and omega.
Country: USSR
Technical: col/scope 165m
Director: Andrei Tarkovsky
Cast: Natalya Bondarchuk, Donatas Banionis, Yuri Yarvet
Synopsis:
An astronaut sent to a space station orbiting a distant planet finds his dead wife there, and very much alive: the planet seems to exert an influence on the consciousness of those who come close to it, and assimilates their experience to itself.
Review:
So what if she isn't real, if she is dearer to me than all the science in the world?', the tormented Kris seems to be saying. The trouble is that his attitude before the rematerialised Hari - and certainly his father at the end - uncomfortably resembles that of supplicant. Should we be slaves to our past, especially when it is full of guilty feelings? 'We can do nothing about it,' Tarkovsky would retort. This slow-moving masterpiece is far less a science-fiction film than an examination of Tarkovsky's habitual concerns (family, nature, memory, divinity, the big questions), in spite of the fact that it appeared to come as a riposte to 2001: A Space Odyssey, from one visionary director to another. And so we have the mother figure, who is rather clearly configured as a doppelganger for the lover figure, an errant horse, a dog, and plentiful reference to the four elements, not least the Solaris ocean itself. The mundane practicalities of travel to and from the presumably distant planet are taken for granted, and the inconsistency of the premise that Man has been struggling to understand Solaristics for decades, with the twentieth century fashions and automobiles, is cavalierly glossed over. Instead we are concerned with psychology, morality, and the possibility that Solaris is a metaphor for God himself, the alpha and omega.
Country: USSR
Technical: col/scope 165m
Director: Andrei Tarkovsky
Cast: Natalya Bondarchuk, Donatas Banionis, Yuri Yarvet
Synopsis:
An astronaut sent to a space station orbiting a distant planet finds his dead wife there, and very much alive: the planet seems to exert an influence on the consciousness of those who come close to it, and assimilates their experience to itself.
Review:
So what if she isn't real, if she is dearer to me than all the science in the world?', the tormented Kris seems to be saying. The trouble is that his attitude before the rematerialised Hari - and certainly his father at the end - uncomfortably resembles that of supplicant. Should we be slaves to our past, especially when it is full of guilty feelings? 'We can do nothing about it,' Tarkovsky would retort. This slow-moving masterpiece is far less a science-fiction film than an examination of Tarkovsky's habitual concerns (family, nature, memory, divinity, the big questions), in spite of the fact that it appeared to come as a riposte to 2001: A Space Odyssey, from one visionary director to another. And so we have the mother figure, who is rather clearly configured as a doppelganger for the lover figure, an errant horse, a dog, and plentiful reference to the four elements, not least the Solaris ocean itself. The mundane practicalities of travel to and from the presumably distant planet are taken for granted, and the inconsistency of the premise that Man has been struggling to understand Solaristics for decades, with the twentieth century fashions and automobiles, is cavalierly glossed over. Instead we are concerned with psychology, morality, and the possibility that Solaris is a metaphor for God himself, the alpha and omega.