Solaris (1972)

Released in 1972, Andrei Tarkovsky’s Solaris has often been described as the Soviet Union’s answer to 2001: A Space Odyssey. And there are plenty of striking parallels between the two movies.

Both were attempts to make intelligent thoughtful high-concept science fiction films dealing with big philosophical issues. Both dealt with humanity’s encounter not just with alien intelligences but with alien intelligences beyond our understanding. Both were very expensive films (the Soviets knew they were going to have to spend real money on Solaris and they did). Both were visually stunning. Both films were made by visionary directors. In both cases the story was based on a work by one of the giants of literary science fiction - the script for 2001 by Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke was based on Clarke’s classic story The Sentinel, Solaris was based on a novel by Stanislaw Lem (who was a fairly big deal in the West and a very big deal indeed in Eastern Europe). Both were outrageously ambitious films. Both were slow-moving but hypnotic. Both were in their own ways masterpieces.

Tarkovsky’s movie begins with a strange and disturbing report from the planet Solaris. The planet had been discovered some years earlier and it has defied all attempts to understand it. An entire science (known as Solaristics) has grown up around theories to explain it. Is the entire planet a single intelligence? Is it hostile or benevolent? Or merely indifferent? Is it aware of us? What does it want? Is it even capable of wanting anything? A space station has been in orbit around the planet for decades, a base for scientists trying to make sense of it all.

The disturbing report is from a helicopter pilot named Burton who has been engaged in a search and rescue mission on Solaris. The report concerns what he saw in the garden, and it concerns the child. But there are no gardens on Solaris. The entire planet is a vast ocean. Or perhaps it’s a gaseous ocean on top of a liquid ocean. Either way there are no gardens and no possibility of gardens existing. And no children.

The problem is that Burton is a very credible witness. He’s a highly trained professional pilot - he wouldn’t have been sent to the Solaris Station otherwise. He’s not a man given to daydreams or fantasies. The enquiry decides that while absolutely no blame can be assigned to Burton what he saw must have been an optical illusion, probably exacerbated by fatigue. What he saw couldn’t be real because it couldn’t exist and what doesn’t exist can’t be real. Years pass but Burton still knows what he saw, and he tries to convince his psychologist friend Kris Kelvin (played by Donatas Banionis) that it was real. Maybe it didn’t exist but it was real.

Kris Kelvin is sent to the Solaris Station in response to further odd reports. The Solaris project has been gradually wound down (and consideration is being given to shutting it down completely) and there are now only three scientists on the station. So it’s rather a surprise for Kris when upon arrival he finds that one of the scientists is dead. The surprise is that there should therefore be only two people left on the station but there are at least five.

There are mysteries here but Tarkovsky is content to reveal them slowly. The background is sketched in piece by piece. Since that was Tarkovsky’s intention I’m not going to reveal too much in this review. The movie works better if you discover things as Kris discovers them.

The movie raises a number of questions. Does space exploration involve humanity’s humanity’s attempt to understand the cosmos or to understand ourselves? Are we really looking inward or outward? Are the scientists on Solaris Station confronting the future or their own pasts? Is Solaris a window or a mirror?

I like Donatas Banionis’s performance. It’s understated but then Kris Kelvin is a man who has always kept himself very much under control. When he starts to unravel Banionis makes it convincing.

Natalya Bondarchuk is vulnerable but slightly frightening as Hari (to tell you too much about Hari would be to reveal too much too soon). All I’ll say is that Hari is a real person, but she’s not a real person. It’s a stunning performance.

While Kubrick in 2001 had zero interest in the emotional lives of his characters (HAL is a machine but he has more depth than the human characters). Tarkovsky is obsessively interested in his characters’ emotional lives, even when they’re not real, or maybe especially when they’re not real, but then how do we know if we’re real? Yes, it’s that kind of movie.

This was the first grungy science fiction movie. The Solaris space station has been in orbit around the planet for many years. It’s still fully functional but it’s starting to show definite signs of wear and tear. It’s grimy in places. It’s messy. In fact it looks like a space station in which a bunch of very untidy scientists have been living and working for years. It’s a far cry from the pristine sterile shiny world of the space station in 2001.

The sets are very impressive. Mostly the space station looks like you’d imagine a real space station would look but it has a library that looks like it belongs in a country house. This is inconsistent but it works. Reality is a bit uncertain in the vicinity of Solaris. The scenes prior to Kelvin’s departure from Earth take place in the countryside and everything is very earthy and very very organic. This we feel is reality. On the space station of course nothing is organic except the people, or some of them at least.

Kris Kelvin actually looks like he might be a psychologist working for a space agency. He’s not a bad-looking guy and he’s in reasonably good shape but he’s middle-aged and a bit dishevelled and a bit weary. In fact he’s the kind of guy you know will always look slightly dishevelled. He looks more like a working space scientist than a movie star.

There was a much later American remake which is best ignored. Suffice to say that the remake completely fails to capture either the atmosphere or the spirit or the thematic complexity of Tarkovsky’s original. Never try to remake a masterpiece. You’ll just make yourself look silly.

The Region B/2 Blu-Ray release from Artificial Eye offers a very good transfer and an entire disc’s worth of extras. Unfortunately the extras are disappointing to say the least, mostly consisting of someone named Mary Wild treating us to worthless blathering about psychoanalysis and postmodernism. The movie is easier to understand without this silliness.

Solaris is a movie about reality and life and death and love and how they all interconnect. If we don’t love are we alive? It’s a love story but first we have to decide what love is.

While Solaris is a complex film and it’s long and it requires patience it’s nowhere near as frustratingly obscure as 2001. Tarkovsky is not trying to mystify us for the sake of it. It’s an intelligent thought-provoking movie but Tarkovsky makes his points with admirable clarity. It’s then up to us to decide how we feel about those things. Very highly recommended. Certainly one of the ten best science fiction movies of all time.