Solaris (1971)

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Solaris (1971) – A. Tarkovsky

Andrei Tarkovsky’s take on science fiction is more about memory and relationships than it is about space stations or mysterious planets (although it is about those too).  Using Stanislaw Lem’s novel as his canvas (and I haven’t read the book to know how closely he hews to it), Tarkovsky creates widescreen images of incredible beauty (often depicting the four elements) with rich complex textures (the opening shot of weeds in a pond; the swirling abstract surface of the planet Solaris).  The pictorial display is surely as important as the humanistic themes here – and, again showing us the importance of art and artists for him (as in Andrei Rublev, 1966), Tarkovsky treats us to a close inspection of “Hunters in the Snow” (1565) by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, which he would revisit again in Mirror (1975).  However, this film really strikes its chord by producing a painful nostalgic reverie in its protagonist and questioning its appropriateness as an escape. Can we or should we dwell in the past?  Or is it impossible to avoid?  Donatas Banionis plays Kris Kelvin, a psychologist sent to a space station orbiting the planet Solaris to investigate the problems faced by the researchers living there who have been acting erratically.  As it turns out, the planet (or its immense sea) is able to generate lifelike replicas of people from our memories, real physically incarnated beings (made up of neutrinos) who appear to have a consciousness of their own with some (but not all) of the memories that the real person would have.  For Kelvin, the doppleganger is of his ex-wife (Khari, played by Natalya Bondarchuk) who committed suicide ten years earlier, after a series of arguments.  Her return is psychologically heavy on him (and it is implied that the other scientists on the station have experienced similar visitations – with similar impacts).  Kelvin is faced with a choice – return to Earth and the depressed existence he seems to have there or stay on the station with this reincarnation of his loving wife who he acknowledges as different from his original wife (just as we should acknowledge that our memories are rarely accurate portrayals of the past).  This is a choice we will never face ourselves (at least I don’t think so) but the opportunity to be absorbed, swayed, delighted, or destroyed by the past seems omnipresent, perhaps even more so as we age.