Solaris (1972)
Movie rating: 7/10
Based on the novel by Stanisław Lem, Solaris makes the infamously slow Star Trek: The Motion Picture feel like a rip-roaring popcorn movie by comparison. Andrei Tarkovsky demands a lot of patience from his audience. But if you can get on the meditative level the director is trying to achieve, the film does eventually capture your interest. Viewers able to maintain long attention spans will be rewarded with one of the more thoughtful works in the history of science fiction cinema.
Psychologist Kris Kelvin (Donatas Banionis) travels to the space station surrounding the ocean planet Solaris after receiving a report of its three crew members being in emotional distress. Shortly after his arrival, Kelvin encounters his dead wife Hari (Natalya Bondarchuk), who committed suicide 10 years earlier. Scientists on Earth had suggested “the Ocean” has a kind of consciousness, and it becomes apparent that the planet is creating materialized versions of the crew members’ thoughts.
To say this movie takes a while to get going is an understatement. The first 40 minutes take place on Earth. Kelvin ruminates with his elderly father and retired pilot Berton, who previously visited Solaris and reported his own strange visions that scientists dismissed as hallucinations. From the first scene, where the camera follows Kelvin silently walking around a pond, Tarkovsky makes clear that he will take his own sweet time moving this story along. At certain points, this deliberately slow pacing can become frustrating. One scene drags on for more than five minutes just showing Berton driving through the city. We see tunnels and roads and bridges, and Berton’s face, then more tunnels and roads and bridges and some buildings. Why is this necessary? The entire sequence could have been cut.
Thankfully, once Kelvin finally makes it to the Solaris Station things start to get a little more interesting. He learns that one of the three scientists, his friend Dr. Gibarian, has killed himself and left a lengthy video message for Kelvin. Dr. Snaut and Dr. Sartorius, the two surviving crew members, also display bizarre behaviour. A tantalizing sense of mystery has been established, and when Kelvin encounters his dead wife, the story really takes off.
The fact that “Hari” is not really Hari, but a materialization created by Solaris makes for some interesting philosophical discussions about reality and what it means to be human. Dr. Sartorius, as the station’s resident asshole, might be the most entertaining character in the movie. He pokes and prods and is happy to spit out blunt truths when no one else is willing to:
Hari: Please don't interrupt me. I'm a woman, after all.
Dr. Sartorius: You're not a woman and you're not a human being. Understand that, if you're capable of understanding anything. There is no Hari. She's dead. You're just a reproduction, a mechanical reproduction. A copy. A matrix.
Hari: Yes. Maybe. But I - I am becoming a human being. I can feel just as deeply as you. Believe me.
Dialogue in this film tends to be interesting and thought-provoking. Some lines are more vague than others, but there are some great exchanges.
Kris Kelvin: To ask is always the desire to know. Yet the preservation of simple human truths requires mystery. The mysteries of happiness, death, and love. To think about it is to know one's day of death.
Dr. Snaut: Maybe you're right, but try not to think about all that now.
Kris Kelvin: Not knowing that day makes us practically immortal.
With its plot heavily built around the protagonist’s dead wife, Solaris gave me strong Christopher Nolan vibes and it’s clear Nolan was influenced by this film. Bondarchuk gives the best performance here, and her distress upon finding that she is not real provides the film’s most emotional scenes.
Music is fairly minimal, with the main theme being a haunting rendition of Bach’s choral prelude for organ, Ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ BWV 639. Special effects are likewise used sparingly, mostly limited to shots of the Solaris ocean created using acetone, aluminium powder, and dyes. The interior set of the space station is less gleaming and antiseptic than those in predecessors such as 2001: A Space Odyssey. It looks more rough, lived-in, and utilitarian, which may have influenced the look of later science fiction films like Ridley Scott’s Alien.
I may feel differently after a second viewing, but my initial reaction was that at 2 hours and 46 minutes, this movie is way too long. Now that I’ve seen it, I know what to expect and might find it easier on a repeat watch to get into the meditative zone Tarkovsky is aiming for. While the movie is slow and demanding of its viewer, I have to give it points for ambition. Tarkovsky stated that he was trying to bring more emotional depth to science fiction movies, since he considered Western equivalents like 2001 to be excessively focused on technological innovations. Though I still prefer 2001, I have to admit that Solaris has more to say from a philosophical standpoint—and unlike Kubrick’s emotionally barren epic, is willing to explore actual human relationships. Seems to me that Tarkovsky succeeded in his goal. Next up: Stalker.