Watched. My rating: 10/10.
My second Andrei Tarkovsky film, first being Stalker (1979). Man... his films really are a handful!
Tarkovsky's direction style reminds me a lot of Stanley Kubrick and this film is like a reverse 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968); if 2001 and The Shining (1980) congressed, this would be the result. As it turns out, Andrei was not a big fan of 2001, referring to it as "cold and sterile", even though Kubrick loved Solaris. I'd say Andrei just missed the point with 2001, but who am I to say that?
Hence, Solaris was meant as a Russian response to 2001, which makes it that much more interesting and amusing for me. It is a much more warm and human drama, whereas 2001's most developed character was H.A.L 9000, an artificial intelligence fueled sentient computer. These two films really act like each others' Yin and Yang; one depicts a future where our fascination with technology dwindles us of emotions and deprives us of intimate human connections (2001) and in the other, technology is merely a background, a presence which seldom makes itself feel, and when it does, it just acts to accentuate our emotions, making them as high as they can be. Love, grief, sorrow, misery, disgust, fear... every knob turns to 11 once you're in Solaris, surrounded by technology. Some might even say that Solaris is a much more cynical than 2001.
The conscience of the crew of Solaris gets personified with the in the shape of the memories of people the crew knew/know. The more one of these mysterious beings interact with the person from whom they originated, the more real and human-like they become, making it possible for them to interact with other crew mates even when the being's main person is dead. I believe these "beings" might be art personified. For e.g, take a writer writing a book. The more time and labor a writer (crew mate) spends on this book (being), the more it'll be comprehensible to other people and the more they'll be able to relate to the book. The book will encompass the writer's human experiences of emotions and intellect.
If the book is refined enough, it'll become a classic, being interacted by people long after the author is dead; like the little girl seen by Kris when he first arrives at Solaris. Replace the book with a film or a painting or a song and the analogy still works.
The little girl follows Kris in the beginning, but once Hari (the female lead) finds him, the little girl disappears from the film. The girl might stand for humanity's lost innocence, following us, always in the past. Kris tries to follow her but soon gives up when he finds a dead body. Once the film progresses, she is so far off in the past that she is out of sight and out of mind. As if she is of no concern to humanity.
Hari might be our infatuation with... the lost desires? I don't know where this thread might lead, need to think about it. But her character's relation with Kris strangely resembles with relationship in Alfred Hitchcock's masterpiece, Vertigo (1958). The similarities are: 'resurrections' of the loved one, or the multiple disguises of Kim Novak's character, the male lead is unable to protect the female and it becomes inevitable to repeat past mistakes.
Repeating past mistakes is a big thing here. Even the building in which they live and operate is in a circular design where characters keep running in circles like a hamster on a wheel (2001). We're all reliving the same basic experiences which just differ in circumstance. As if the love story remains the same, it's only the time and details which change. Like Hari, who comes back again and again, differing just a little each time; this theme is akin to the themes of 2004's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind where the two main characters keep engaging in a doomed relationship each time their memory is wiped. We're all trapped in our own little islands of memories, living the same life over and over again.
Solaris should be a mandatory double feature with 2001; hell! make it a triple feature and add Vertigo in the mix!
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