I have now watched 209 minutes of Soviet era film from the auteur, Andrei Tarkovsky. Previously I viewed his masterpiece, Stalker (1979), and recently I finished Solaris (1972).
Three and a half hours of crises of faith and humanity and identity.
And what have I learned?
I. What Is It?
This is the story of an observation station orbiting the ocean planet, Solaris. The mean there report hallucinations and strange occurrences. Psychologist, Kris Kelvin, is sent to do an evaluation and get to the bottom of what is happing above Solaris.II. What is Humanity?
If the psychological crux of Stalker was a dissection of faith and the lack of it, Solaris is a film about the nature of humanity and what counts as "human."
The seething ocean on Solaris taps into the minds of the astronauts aboard the space station and creates beings made of nutrinos out of their memories. These beings heal quickly, and are thus immortal, unless they are separated from their progenitors, the astronauts, for too long. If they do not have the psychological anchor, their matter begins to break down. They lose their shape, and they die.
Kris' subconscious summons the memory of his dead wife, Hari. We begin to then unravel the story of the original Hari's demise. She killed herself after a separation from her husband, Kris.
Kris falls in love with this new Hari. The kicker, though, is we cannot be sure if Kris is in love with the Hari before him, the Hari of his memory, or is using this second chance as a means to absolve himself of the guilt over Hari's suicide on Earth.
As Kris falls into love and madness, Hari becomes alarmingly self aware. She begins to understand that while she looks like Hari, and has Hari's memory, she is not Hari. She cares for Kris because of her own memories, and because of the love and care he offers her, but she realizes that she is in an inescapable hell. She is linked to this man. She cannot escape him, or she will disintegrate. She is born of his love and loss, but cannot define herself or construct her own sense of agency. Ultimately, she kills herself. I assumed that she did this for herself as much for Kris. How can a person continue and say that they are a person if they are an existential slave to another?
Tarkovsky forces his viewer to begin wrestling with what love means, and what can be defined as humanity, and whether or not it is a good thing to live in the past. Is love borne out of guilt or programming real love? Is it our DNA that makes us human, or our sentience? If we live in the past, are we betraying a happier future?
Hari makes her choice: she takes her own agency and dies snatching control from Kris, and Solaris, really. It is an unhappy end, but it frees herself, and Kris, to make their own decisions without herself as emotional collateral. Kris, too, makes his choice: he travels to the surface of Solaris and lives out the rest of his days on an island in the heaving ocean, in a mirrored construct of his own childhood home, with a mirrored construct of his father. And anything else, presumably, that Solaris provides him.
Tarkovsky has set up the pieces and the stakes, and leaves the viewer with a steaming pile of moral uncertainty. Who made the right decision? Are the Solaris constructs living things? Can humanity be so narrowly defined? If perception is reality, is it better to live in the happy past than to forge ahead into an uncertain future? Tarkovsky doesn't give us answers. He challenges us to ask those questions of ourselves.
I like that. Even if it is frustrating as a viewer.
- This is a gorgeous movie that explores difficult moral and philosophical ideas. It will make you thinkThe seething ocean on Solaris taps into the minds of the astronauts aboard the space station and creates beings made of nutrinos out of their memories. These beings heal quickly, and are thus immortal, unless they are separated from their progenitors, the astronauts, for too long. If they do not have the psychological anchor, their matter begins to break down. They lose their shape, and they die.
Kris' subconscious summons the memory of his dead wife, Hari. We begin to then unravel the story of the original Hari's demise. She killed herself after a separation from her husband, Kris.
Kris falls in love with this new Hari. The kicker, though, is we cannot be sure if Kris is in love with the Hari before him, the Hari of his memory, or is using this second chance as a means to absolve himself of the guilt over Hari's suicide on Earth.
As Kris falls into love and madness, Hari becomes alarmingly self aware. She begins to understand that while she looks like Hari, and has Hari's memory, she is not Hari. She cares for Kris because of her own memories, and because of the love and care he offers her, but she realizes that she is in an inescapable hell. She is linked to this man. She cannot escape him, or she will disintegrate. She is born of his love and loss, but cannot define herself or construct her own sense of agency. Ultimately, she kills herself. I assumed that she did this for herself as much for Kris. How can a person continue and say that they are a person if they are an existential slave to another?
Tarkovsky forces his viewer to begin wrestling with what love means, and what can be defined as humanity, and whether or not it is a good thing to live in the past. Is love borne out of guilt or programming real love? Is it our DNA that makes us human, or our sentience? If we live in the past, are we betraying a happier future?
Hari makes her choice: she takes her own agency and dies snatching control from Kris, and Solaris, really. It is an unhappy end, but it frees herself, and Kris, to make their own decisions without herself as emotional collateral. Kris, too, makes his choice: he travels to the surface of Solaris and lives out the rest of his days on an island in the heaving ocean, in a mirrored construct of his own childhood home, with a mirrored construct of his father. And anything else, presumably, that Solaris provides him.
Tarkovsky has set up the pieces and the stakes, and leaves the viewer with a steaming pile of moral uncertainty. Who made the right decision? Are the Solaris constructs living things? Can humanity be so narrowly defined? If perception is reality, is it better to live in the happy past than to forge ahead into an uncertain future? Tarkovsky doesn't give us answers. He challenges us to ask those questions of ourselves.
I like that. Even if it is frustrating as a viewer.
III. Wonderfully Constructed
This is a far-flung future with interstellar travel and high tech, but Tarkovsky's art department does not allow the film to veer into Jetsons-level retro-futurism. The space station looks high tech, but realistic. The costuming is sleek and stylish, but also restrained. The first act takes place on Earth, and it is an Earth we recognize. There are cars, and government officials, and dogs and houses made of lumber. Tarkovsky roots his sci fi in believability, in a world we connect to so that we feel at home in the world of the film.
When you remove an audience too much, it is easy for the audience to get complacent. Too much bells and whistles removes the empathic connection we have for the characters and the circumstances.
Having seen where Tarkovsky would go, seven years later in Stalker, it is fun to see where his style evolved from. The long, lingering shots are there. The beautiful photography and sense of balance are there. The quiet, hushed sequences and understated performances are there. He would master them in Stalker, but one can see a master at work in Solaris.
When you remove an audience too much, it is easy for the audience to get complacent. Too much bells and whistles removes the empathic connection we have for the characters and the circumstances.
Having seen where Tarkovsky would go, seven years later in Stalker, it is fun to see where his style evolved from. The long, lingering shots are there. The beautiful photography and sense of balance are there. The quiet, hushed sequences and understated performances are there. He would master them in Stalker, but one can see a master at work in Solaris.
IV. Too Goddamned Long
Look, this movie feels every minute of its 167 minute runtime. I know that a sense of epic stakes needs to be established, and I know that the first act on Earth is crucial to setting up the story on the space station, but, damn. This thing is long. And it feels it. I watched in in three sittings. I don't usually allow a movie that much time. It's usually one-and-done or none.
Your mileage may vary. But be forewarned.
Your mileage may vary. But be forewarned.
Why You Should See It
Why You Shouldn't See It
A Note
I've watched two Tarkovsky films this summer, and, if you are thinking of venturing into the Russian Auteur's filmography, for what it is worth, I suggest watching Stalker. Not many people have the time to commit to such prodigious runtimes, and who can blame them, and I think that Stalker is the better film. Do with that what you will.
Miscellany
- While this is one of the more widely viewed films of Tarkovsky, outside of the Soviet states, Tarkovsky himself considered it his least favorite film.- People have compared this film to Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). And, indeed, Kubrick and Tarkovsky, in my mind, are employ similar visual techniques (long takes, excruciating attention to detail, exploration of difficult themes). Tarkovsky had not, however, seen 2001 before making Solaris. Later, upon viewing Kubrick's film, he would remark that the film felt "sterile." Sick burn.
- The full, uncut, Russian-language version of this film would not screen in the US until 1989 in New York.
- Steven Soderbergh remade the film in 2002. For what it's worth, that version is a full hour shorter.
- The film was based on a novel of the same name by Stanislaw Lem. Lem criticized changes Tarkovsky made in his film, saying, he did not write the novel about "people's erotic problems in space." Sick burn.
- Tarkovsky worked with long-time cinematographer Vadim Yusov on this film. But the men fought so much during filming that their relationship was ruined, and they never worked together again.
- In the Soviet Union, this film ran in theaters, in some capacity, for 15 years.
Comments
Post a Comment