To the moon and back.

Solaris - (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1972)

The concluding scene in Andrei Tarlovsky’s Solaris is a mind-boggling experience to me. I am not even sure if I got it right or that the director’s intention is really that to allow us to interpret it in different perspectives. For though the goals in the movie are scientific it is not about science; it is not even the science-fiction that it may seem to be. Tarkovsky’s film is an exploration about love and humanity in general – such mundane subject matters actually, but the entire journey is anything but.

The first part of the film is a lengthy discussion of a planned mission to Solaris by Chris Kelvin (Donatas Banionis) and its background. Burton (Vladislav Dvorzhetsky), the cosmonaut who came from the Russian space station tells of the mysterious deaths and apparitions in the spaceship apparently caused by emissions called ‘neutrinos’ by the Solaris sea which surrounds the planet. Exposure to such would lead to a thought-extraction process which is substantiated in form. The memories, thoughts or yearnings extracted are of course distinct because it would have to be of specific importance to the person. These are not ghosts but human in form.

Thus, Chris encounters an embodiment of his deceased wife Hari (Natalya Bondarchuk), the importance of which we would later learn as the story unfolds. Hari, in a human form though is experiencing some kind of amnesia – the only memories accessible to her are as far as Chris knows, so as the other ‘guests’ in the spaceship who are embodiments of thoughts or memories of two other astronauts.  Chris also finds a tape from a dead crew member which warns him of the mysteries enveloping the spaceship. Much of the narrative in part two would center on the relationship of Chris and the spaceship’s Hari as opposed to flashbacks of their relationship on Earth when she was still alive.

I can’t help but attribute some of its qualities to Kubrick’s adaptation of Arthur C. Clarke’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. Solaris is also an adaptation of a Polish science fiction novel by Stanislaw Lem. Both films are human missions to space prompted by a scientific aberration: in Odyssey a mission is sent to space in search of clues for what might be the first possible evidence of intelligence in outer space while Solaris, of the deaths and mysteries apparently caused by the planet itself. What is interesting in Solaris is that it is in fact a journey to oneself set in the background of space – the scientific journey made into a philosophical discourse on human nature.

Both films use rhythm to emphasize space and the irrelevance of time. The journey is long, in fact 2 hours and 39 minutes. The slow and often boring rhythm is coupled by scenes of confounding length. This is not only true in the lingering pans inside the ship but on Earth itself. This length shows us the whole experience of traveling as a process of meditation and Tarkovsky invites us to do the same though not convincingly because we are first overridden with restlessness – we are inside a traveling car passing through tunnels and seemingly endless and repetitious routes. (I saw a clip of another Tarkovsky film, Nostalgia, and this character walks back and forth aimlessly among damp and murky ruins.)

Which brings me to the whole point of the experience – as humans we don’t achieve genuine reflection as we pass through life’s tunnels, repetitious and tiring routes. We need to be catapulted to outer space to be able to do so. We are restless. It is as if life is made up of brief fast-pace chapters.