Solaris (1972)

Something has gone wrong at the Soviet space station around the planet Solaris. The planet has a sentient ocean that may be creating hallucinations and that idea frighten those in charge. Kris Kelvin (Donatas Banionis), an unpleasant and simple man who is supposedly a psychologist, but never displays that in any way, has been chosen to travel to the station, check on the three scientists there, and maybe decide if it needs to be shut down (his mission is extremely vague, but then so is the location of the station, Solaris, and the world.) After discussing Solaris—between really long pauses—with his mildly unpleasant father and an unpleasant and off-putting pilot, Kelvin sets off, and is immediately there, or maybe it takes time (it’s extremely vague). He finds the station disheveled, one scientist dead from suicide, and the other two unpleasant and weird. It seems they are seeing people from their lives and this always ends up poorly. Soon Kelvin is visited by his long dead wife Khari or Hari depending on the translation (Natalya Bondarchuk). This makes Kelvin even more unpleasant and as weird as the others.

Well, this review isn’t going to make me popular. Solaris is often considered a companion piece or response to 2001: A Space Odyssey. I suppose that’s true in the simplest of ways as they came out around the same time, they both have an unhurried pace, and both have large sections taking place on a space station. Beyond that, no. 2001 is an intellectual movie that uses that pace as part of its metaphor. Solaris is an emotional film that has many pauses so you, the audience, can ponder. Yes, this is a movie that stops so you have can dwell on events in your own life. I can’t imagine ever needing such self-evaluation moments in the middle of a film, but if so, I’ll leave and go walk in a garden. Director Andrei Tarkovsky hated the comparison partly because he hated 2001. But then Stanislaw Lem hated this adaptation of his novel, so there’s plenty of hate to go around.

Solaris is the sort of film thought of as philosophical by people who’ve never studied philosophy and labeled as “smart science fiction” by those desperate for genre films they can be proud of when talking to non-SF fans, that is, films that don’t contain ray guns and space battles. It has the velocity of a sloth, as well as the IQ, but it isn’t nearly as cute. While Solaris brings up what it means to be human and how we should feel about that, it has no answers, nor insights, and does nothing more than bring up the questions the same way that drugged-out guy did at that freshman college party you attended: “Hey, hey, like hey, are we like, just what other people imagine us to be or are we more. man?” But then Tarksovsky isn’t interested in answers or even those questions. He’s interested in a connection to God. The Soviet censors left most of Solaris alone, only requiring a few cuts dealing with religion. Considering how heavy-handed it is now, I think we’ve got to thank the censors as this thing would have just ended up as a sermon.

So what we have is a very long opening segment with tons of exposition in which Kelvin reveals himself to be a jerk. All of it could have been done in five minutes if everyone didn’t wander off and stare every few minutes. And wondering takes time; how can we know he’s walked across the yard if we don’t see his every step? Then we get over two hours of three unpleasant people, plus one fantasy wife, gazing off and speaking slowly, and then only to argue. I suppose there are people who speak this slowly and pointlessly when they are thinking or upset, but what’s the chances of getting three of those in the same place at the same time? That’s not fair; they also wander around. How can we know he’s traveled down a corridor if we don’t see every step? I hope you like slow sweeps up sleeping bodies, because wow, those sweeps are slow.

Neither the story nor the characters—particularly the characters—make sense unless, as is vaguely suggested, the entire films is a false memory and everyone was a constructed “guest.” (Ooooh, wouldn’t that be deep? No, it would not. That’s one step from “it was all a dream.)

It isn’t all a disaster. There’s no fix for the characters, but otherwise there’s a good movie here waiting to be whittled out of this tedious block. The final shot is nice, as is some of the bits with Khari. But in this form it is a slog with little reward at the end. Steven Soderbergh remade it in 2002 with George Clooney, and did some whittling making it half as long, but it still is unrewarding and as that version doesn’t “feel important,” few people like it.