Solaris

Dir: Andrei Tarkovsky

1972

*****

Andrei Tarkovsky's third feature length film is one of the greatest space/sci-fi films ever to be made. Based on the 1961 Polish science fiction novel Solaris by Stanisław Lem, Tarkovsky had two motives for his adaption; firstly, he admired Lem's work. Secondly, he desperately needed work and money because his previous film, 1966's Andrei Rublev had gone unreleased and his screenplay, 'A White, White Day', had been rejected by studios and producers alike (thankfully he managed to make it and in 1975 it would be released as The Mirror). The novel by Stanisław Lem, a popular and critically respected writer in the USSR, was a logical commercial and artistic choice. Tarkovsky and Lem collaborated and remained in communication about the cinematic adaptation of the novel Solaris. Fridrikh Gorenshtein co-wrote the initial screenplay with Tarkovsky but the Mosfilm committee disliked it and Stanisław Lem got furious over this unacceptably drastic alteration of his novel (far more of the story took place on Earth than in the novel). The final screenplay yielded the shooting script which has less action on Earth, and Kelvin's marriage to his second wife Maria was deleted from the story. In the book, Lem describes science's inadequacy in allowing humans to communicate with an alien life form, because certain forms, at least, of sentient extra-terrestrial life may operate well outside of human experience and understanding. In the film, Tarkovsky concentrates upon Kelvin's feelings for his wife, Hari, and the impact of outer space exploration upon the human condition. Dr. Gibarian's monologue (which is in the novel) is the highlight of the final library scene, wherein Snaut says, "We don't need other worlds. We need mirrors". Unlike the novel, which begins with psychologist Kris Kelvin's spaceflight, and occurs entirely on Solaris, the film shows Kelvin's visit to his parents' house in the country before leaving Earth for Solaris. The contrast establishes the worlds in which he lives – a vibrantly living Earth versus an austere, closed-in space station orbiting the planet Solaris – demonstrating and questioning space exploration's impact upon the human psyche. Whereby much of 2001: A Space Odyssey is open to interpretation, Solaris has very fixed ideas, some that will take a while to adjust to. The film references Tarkovsky's 1966 film Andrei Rublev by having an icon by Andrei Rublev being placed in Kelvin's room. It thus forms the second part, together with Tarkovsky's next film The Mirror (1975) which also references Andrei Rublev by having a poster of the film being hanged on a wall, making it a series of three films by Tarkovsky referencing Andrei Rublev. 2001: A Space Odyssey is always going to be the film to compare it to, even though they are very different. There is something insular about Solaris, even though its scope is probably as wide as anything could be. There is nothing quite like it. The set design of Solaris features paintings by the Old Masters. The interior of the space station is decorated with full reproductions of the 1565 painting cycle of The Months (The Hunters in the Snow, The Gloomy Day, The Hay Harvest, The Harvesters, and The Return of the Herd) by Pieter Brueghel the Elder, and details of Landscape with the Fall of Icarus and The Hunters in the Snow (1565). The scene of Kelvin kneeling before his father and the father embracing him alludes to The Return of the Prodigal Son (1669), by Rembrandt. The references and allusions are Tarkovsky's efforts to give the young art of cinema a historic perspective of centuries, to evoke the viewer's feeling that cinema is a mature art. To do that in a futuristic sci-fi film that takes place in space and get away with it is still astonishing. Every detail is sublime, it has the content and it looks beautiful. A list of "The 100 Best Films of World Cinema" compiled by Empire magazine in 2010 ranked Solaris at No. 68 and in 2002 Steven Soderbergh, who didn't learn anything from his buddy Gus Van Sant and his attempt at remaking Hitchcock's Psycho, wrote and directed an American adaptation of Solaris, which starred George Clooney. It's wasn't great. The author and thinker Salman Rushdie called Solaris "a sci-fi masterpiece", and has urged that: "This exploration of the unreliability of reality and the power of the human unconscious, this great examination of the limits of rationalism and the perverse power of even the most ill-fated love, needs to be seen as widely as possible before it's transformed by Steven Soderbergh and James Cameron into what they ludicrously threaten will be 2001 meets Last Tango in Paris.' What, sex in space with floating butter? Tarkovsky must be turning over in his grave." Indeed, Solaris is something special but everything good sci-fi should aspire towards. A proper masterpiece.