Forgotten Solaris

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Attention! Further in the text is the content of the film. If you have not watched this film, we recommend that you watch it before reading the article.

The sound of Bach's cosmic organ prelude in F minor Ich ruf zu dir Herr Jesu Christ, bubbling water with wriggling algae, thick grass accompanied by birdsong by a mighty tree on which a dense fog falls - these are the first frames of the film Solaris by Andrei Tarkovsky. The viewer immediately tunes in to a serious and philosophical cinema, in which everything is excellent - the director's work, the game and the cast of actors, the work of the operator.

Scenes of nature are magnificent. Drops of summer rain that fill the cups of tea left on the terrace. A small house by the road where the father of the protagonist lives. Children who joyfully frolic in nature in the rays of the summer sun. There are a lot of such contemplative scenes in the picture.

Today, when you start talking about the film "Solaris", many do not know that this is not an American film adaptation (I must say empty) of Soderbergh with George Clooney in the lead roles. This is the already forgotten film adaptation of Andrei Tarkovsky based on the science fiction novel by Stanislav Lem. But Andrei Arsenievich has a different ending from the novel and other meanings are laid, which led to disagreements with the author of the novel.

Meanings of Tarkovsky

I do not know of a single work of science fiction, where it was not about the present day and not about us - people. According to the plot, the main character, psychologist and doctor Chris Kelvin, must go to a scientific space station, where three scientists have been living and working for several years. This station is located near the planet Solaris, which is being studied by researchers Snout, Sartorius and Giborian.

There is a discussion on Earth about the need to explore the planet. Interest in this research is fueled by the testimony of pilot Burton. The pilot claims that the "Ocean" is capable of materializing various objects. And from the station comes strange and contradictory data from researchers. Chris is going to the station. Before departure, he rides in a taxi. This 4 minute trip scene is a kind of metaphor for Chris' flight to Solaris. Chris's walks in nature are replaced by a picture of a river of artificial lights, amidst the rapid and deafening stream of cars flowing among the concrete and asphalt in a huge and ugly city.

Upon arrival at the station, it turns out that Giboryan committed suicide, and Kelvin finds the other two crew members in a state of deep depression, on the verge of insanity. It turns out that the reason for the crew's mental abnormalities is the appearance at the station of creatures ("guests"), which are exact copies of people previously known to the characters, moreover, those with whom sharp, traumatic memories are associated. Each scientist has his own phantom.

During sleep, a "guest" comes to Kelvin. The ocean materializes the image of his wife Hari, who had died 10 years earlier by suicide after a family quarrel. And this is where the essence of the protagonist manifests itself.

Kelvin is simply not able to calmly treat the appearance of his "wife". He perfectly understands that Hari is … a misunderstanding. But he also understands that she is the result of his mental weakness. Solaris, as it were, moves a mirror to the inhabitants of the station, and they are forced to look at themselves without any possible evasion from this meeting.

Such a non-standard situation reveals what a person has deep inside and it turns out to be a surprise, first of all, for the person himself.

We set out to conquer space without examining ourselves, says Tarkovsky. And do we really need space?

No wonder Snout states with sadness:

The science? Nonsense! In this situation, everyone is equally helpless. I must tell you that we do not want to conquer the Cosmos at all. We want to expand the Earth to its borders.

We do not know what to do with other worlds. We don't need other worlds

we need a mirror. We are struggling with contact and will never find it. We are in the stupid position of a person striving for a goal that he does not need. Human needs human!.

Lem was very interested in the problem of meeting with the mind, completely different from the human, with the mind surpassing the human. He modeled a situation-assumption, built a hypothesis. Tarkovsky kept this line: a person flew to the planet in order to "establish contact with it", trying to influence it with a powerful beam of X-rays, and it is enough for the planet to materialize a departed loved one to make him go crazy. A person arrogantly thinks that he can invade other unknown worlds in order to subjugate them - without knowing or understanding anything about them. Tarkovsky said:

“The main meaning … of the film, I see in its moral issues. Penetration into the innermost secrets of nature should be inextricably linked with moral progress. Having taken a step onto a new level of cognition, it is necessary to put the other foot on a new moral level. I wanted to prove with my painting that the problem of moral stability, moral purity permeates our entire existence, manifesting itself even in areas that, at first glance, are not related to morality, such as penetration into space, the study of the objective world, and so on."

The library in the picture is an island of the Earth in Space.

This room contains great books and reproductions - relics of the historical and artistic memory of people: Venus de Milo, a bust of Socrates, "Don Quixote" by Cervantes, Pushkin's death mask, a Chinese dragon and Bruegel paintings.

(You can study the relics here)

In the genius scene of weightlessness, the main characters see the painting by Pieter Bruegel "Hunters in the Snow". This picture, it seems to me, is about the plurality of the World and about life on earth. Hari and Chris, when they fly, look at the universe from the side and, like Bruegel in "The Hunters", see the fullness and diversity of this World. Peace on earth. And Hari, surrounded by objects of art, in 30 seconds learns a lot about the earth and more and more turns into a person.

Pieter Bruegl, Hunters in the Snow

And in the end, Hari saves Chris by dying, realizing the ephemeral nature of their relationship.

Solaris is a crooked but neutral mirror, indifferent to what is reflected in it, the embodiment of the moral law. And the near-planetary station is a pressure chamber where moral pressure is built up. And Chris, under the pressure of everything that happened, takes the very step to a new level of morality that Tarkovsky spoke about, having reconsidered his attitude towards himself, his departed wife, the Earth, the Motherland and the Ocean itself.

At the end of the film, Ocean erupts from itself new transformations, based on what Kelvin wants most now - that very little house by the road where Chris's father lives, a lake with algae and trees, whose branches stretch like the spokes of an umbrella for meters. The main character slowly walks past the lake to the house, where he finds his father. The film ends with a reference to Rembrandt's painting The Return of the Prodigal Son. Changed, realizing and accepting everything that Solaris showed him, Chris falls on his knees in front of his father and his father, as a symbol of higher intelligence, accepts Chris, putting his hands on his shoulders. This is the very contact …

Malakhov Vladimir, Picture of the world

The Return of the Prodigal Son by Rembrandt

Zero gravity scene Hari and Chris

Final scene

Solaris, dir. Andrey Tarkovsky, 1972: