The 2002 English-language movie "Solaris" starring George Clooney is now on DVD, I thought it would be a good time to write a little about the 1972 Russian-language film of the same title, which Criterion Collection released on DVD several months ago. Both versions of "Solaris" are based on the 1961 science-fiction novel by Stanislaw Lem, and while I think the 2002 film is very good, I think the 1972 movie is great.
"Shame—the feeling that will save mankind," declares one of the characters in the 1972 "Solaris," a profoundly humanistic film that is deeply concerned with morality. The creative force behind the movie was Andrei Tarkovsky (1932-1986), a writer-director who thought that Bach’s "Prelude in F Minor" made a good soundtrack for a science-fiction film, Bruegel's 16th-century painting "Hunters in the Snow" was the right artwork to evoke nostalgic feelings for Earth, and the book to read—whether at one’s country house or on a space station—would be Cervantes' "Don Quixote." Tarkovsky also thought that men on a space station should allude to Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Goethe, and Luther in their conversations.
Tarkovsky's "Solaris" is two hours 47 minutes long and proceeds at a languorous pace. Shots lasting two to four minutes are commonplace, and the film is edited in a straightforward manner. But I think the movie is a work of visual genius because of its imagery, fluidity, and the composition of key shots.
The central character in the 1972 "Solaris" is Kris Kelvin, a psychologist who resides at some unidentified place on Earth. We first encounter Kelvin at his family’s charming country house, where he is spending time with his father. Kelvin and his dad are joined by an aging retired astronaut who years earlier had been part of a crew aboard a space station orbiting the mysterious planet Solaris.
Soon Kelvin travels to the space station, where he meets two crew members and finds a third has committed suicide. Also on board are beings that are dead ringers for a pubescent girl and a male dwarf. These beings seem to be examples of imperfect replicas of humans, each of which has been created from the conscience of a crew member. The replicas started appearing on the station after the crew directed strong beams of radiation at the ocean that covers the planet.
While I think the 1972 "Solaris" is a great film, I have to admit it's not without its flaws. There’s a particularly jarring sequence that lasts almost five minutes where nothing happens except a character is driven around a city in 1970s Japan. I suppose this came about because Tarkovsky felt the need to include some footage of an urban setting on Earth as it might look in the near future, and he couldn’t come up with the budget to do anything better.
Eventually, Tarkovsky's movie wends its way to an ending I find much more satisfying than the ending of the 2002 "Solaris." In the more recent film, it appears to me that George Clooney’s Kelvin must live through eternity with an emotionally unstable, suicidal mate. But in the 1972 "Solaris," Kelvin not only escapes that unhappy fate, he seemingly is able to come to terms with the life he has lived, including his relationship with his parents.
There is almost no action in Tarkovsky's "Solaris," and the special effects are unimpressive. But I find this film extremely thought-provoking and hypnotically resonant.
