Solaris
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Movie Reviews of Solaris
Movie Review: Solaris, the great spiritual teacher
Summary: 5 Stars
The movie Solaris based on the book is not a great movie but it is brilliant for the questions it raises when one stops to consider the implications. What is Solaris trying to communicate to us? Is it just trying to please us, toy with us or is it trying to teach us something? Each is searching for the truth as a scientist and a human being. One of the themes portrayed in this story is the search for truth. The two main methods of searching for it are outwardly through science and inwardly through inner enquiry. Further more each character in the story is forced to face a conflict within themselves and with each other about what is real and what is not.
Let's start with the question, "What is love?" Kelvin is in love with Rheya (again) but not the real Rheya... Rheya is in every detail exactly taken from Kelvin's memory. Although he knows that she is not the same person the love he feels for her is real because it is based on a real person in his past.
First let's look at the differences between he two Rheya's. We know that physically there are two Rheya's, we know one is real from earth and one is 'real' as in recreated living functioning human (but not the same person) in Solaris. We also could suggest that there may also be at some point behavioural differences between the two Rheya's. The Solaris Rheya's is programmed by Kelvin's memory and the Earth Rheya is not allowing the Earth Rheya more freedom of choice of behaviour.
Now let's explore Rheya from Kelvin's point of view. Kelvin is plagued by the fact that Rheya on the space station is not real. He knows she is not the same women. The Rheya on earth was real, the Solaris Rheya is just a copy based on his memory (his stored perception of her). At this point begin to realise that there is actually no difference, from Kelvin's point of view, between the Earth Rheya and the Solaris Rheya. The Rheya on earth was never anything more than Kelvin's perception of her.
Going further we realise that this is actually exactly how it works for all of us in our relationships on earth. So we ask ourselves, "What is love?" and we realise that our love is actually based not on the real person but on our perception of that person. Our feelings for another person are based on an inner relationship between ourselves and the mental image we have created of that person in our minds. This mental image is constantly updated by our perception of that person. Our perception is individual and biased, modified by our life's experience and many other factors. None of this is reality; none of this is truth and can never be argued as truth. However there is no other way to experience the world. We live in this fantasy, we have no choice. The only thing we can choose is be aware (in thought and action) that we live in a fantasy (a mental representation that is different from physical reality) or we can pretend that our fantasy it is real.
Let's not stop there; we can go further, if it is like this with Kelvin (Subject) and Rheya (object) in relationship then is it true for all subject object relationships? Between Kelvin and everything he perceives? We know that there is a physical reality, that there is an ultimate truth but we also know that it is impossible to reach using our same object subject based experience of reality. So the question remains what is left. "How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?" - Arthur Conan Doyle
The story reveals that in essence the scientist and the spiritual human are the same... both seekers of the truth albeit with different approaches. The scientist searches for the Truth externally through subject object observation of the world. He seeks a way to study the world without his bias of perception so he devises methods to do this validation 'mental concepts' using instruments, methodology and peer review.
A spiritual human searches for the Truth internally. His search begins realising (consciously or unconsciously) that he is living in his own fantasy (a mentally constructed world). Deciding it is impossible to move beyond subject object relationships by looking externally he seeks internally. He seeks to examine the cause of this and then to see if he can move beyond it. He seeks to wake from this fantasy but finds nothing but his own seeking. It may take him a long time to realise that the answer is obvious. He thinks he has found nothing but he has found the looking. So this is where he turns his attention.
The subject object mind creates separation between the two. Separation will always cause an indirect experience and thus no experience or understanding of truth (reality). In order to experience the truth (reality) there can be no separation from it. He decides to turn his attention away from examining objects (the observed) towards examining the subject (the observer; his awareness; his consciousness). Who is looking? Who is being aware? Is it possible to exist in a state of awareness without object? Is that reality (truth)? Solaris raises the possibility that in order to understand the universe we must first understand ourselves.
"Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes." - C. G. Jung
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Movie Review: "Solaris" Intellectual Sci-Fi
Summary: 5 Stars
Solaris" tells the story of a planet that reads minds, and obliges its visitors by devising and providing people they have lost, and miss. The Catch-22 is that the planet knows no more than its visitors know about these absent people. As the film opens, two astronauts have died in a space station circling the planet, and the survivors have sent back alarming messages. A psychiatrist named Chris Kelvin (George Clooney) is sent to the station, and when he awakens after his first night on board, his wife, Rheya (Natascha McElhone), is in bed with him. Some time earlier on earth, she had committed suicide."She's not human," Kelvin is warned by Dr. Helen Gordon (Viola Davis), one of the surviving crew members. Kelvin knows this materialization cannot be his wife, yet is confronted with a person who seems palpably real, shares memories with him and is flesh and blood. The other survivor, the goofy Snow (Jeremy Davies), asks, "I wonder if they can get pregnant?"
This story originated with a Polish novel by Stanislaw Lem that is considered one of the major adornments of science fiction. It was made into a 1972 movie of the same name by the Russian master Andrei Tarkovsky. Now Steven Soderbergh has retold it in the kind of smart film that has people arguing about it on their way out of the theater.
The movie needs science fiction to supply the planet and the space station, which furnish the premise and concentrate the action, but it is essentially a psychological drama. When Kelvin arrives on the space station, he finds the survivors seriously spooked. Soderbergh directs Jeremy Davies to escalate his usual style of tics and stutters, to the point where a word can hardly be uttered without his hands waving to evoke it from the air.
Even scarier is Gordon, the scientist played by Viola Davis, who has seen whatever catastrophe overtook the station and does not consider Kelvin part of the solution. In his gullibility will he believe his wife has somehow really been resurrected? And ... what does the planet want? Why does it do this? As a favor, or as a way of luring us into accepting manifestations of its own ego and need? Will the human race eventually be replaced by the Solaris version?
Clooney has successfully survived being named People magazine's sexiest man alive by deliberately choosing projects that ignore that image. His alliance with Soderbergh, both as an actor and co-producer, shows a taste for challenge. Here, as Kelvin, he is intelligent, withdrawn, sad, puzzled. Certain this seems to be his wife, and although he knows intellectually that she is not, still--to destroy her would be ... inhuman. The screenplay develops a painful paradox out of that reality.
The genius of Lem's underlying idea is that the duplicates, or replicants, or whatever we choose to call them, are self-conscious and seem to carry on with free will from the moment they are evoked by the planet. Rheya, for example, says, "I'm not the person I remember. I don't remember experiencing these things." And later, "I'm suicidal because that's how you remember me."
In other words, Kelvin gets back not his dead wife, but a being who incorporates all he knows about his dead wife, and nothing else, and starts over from there. She has no secrets because he did not know her secrets. If she is suicidal, it is because he thought she was. The deep irony here is that all of our relationships in the real world are exactly like that, even without the benefit of Solaris. We do not know the actual other person. What we know is the sum of everything we think we know about them. Even empathy is perhaps of no use; we think it helps us understand how other people feel, but maybe it only tells us how we would feel, if we were them.
At a time when many American movies pump up every fugitive emotion into a clanging assault on the audience, Soderbergh's "Solaris" is quiet and introspective. There are some shocks and surprises, but this is not "Alien." It is a workshop for a discussion of human identity. It considers not only how we relate to others, but how we relate to our ideas of others--so that a completely phony, non-human replica of a dead wife can inspire the same feelings that the wife herself once did. That is a peculiarity of humans: We feel the same emotions for our ideas as we do for the real world, which is why we can cry while reading a book, or fall in love with movie stars. Our idea of humanity bewitches us, while humanity itself stays safely sealed away into its billions of separate containers, or "people."
When I saw Tarkovsky's original film, I felt absorbed in it, as if it were a sponge. It was slow, mysterious, confusing, and I have never forgotten it. Soderbergh's version is more clean and spare, more easily readable, but it pays full attention to the ideas and doesn't compromise. Tarkovsky was a genius, but one who demanded great patience from his audience as he ponderously marched toward his goals. The Soderbergh version is like the same story freed from the weight of Tarkovsky's solemnity. And it evokes one of the rarest of movie emotions, ironic regret.
Movie Review: This is not my Beautiful Wife...
Summary: 5 Stars
Just like the old Talking Heads song, psychologist Chris Kelvin wakes up in his spartan sleeping chamber aboard a space station orbiting the enigmatic planet Solaris to discover his wife Rheya by his side. His beautiful wife, awake, close to his side, easing him out of one nightmare and into another.
There's one minor complication: Rheya has been dead for years.
So there you have it: Kelvin, stunned, having a David Byrne-esque "Once in a Lifetime" moment, wondering "is this my beautiful wife"? And for much of Steven Soderbergh's heartbreaking, masterful, quiet and searing "Solaris", the supposition is that maybe that doesn't matter very much.
"Solaris" is not Soderbergh's finest hour---for that look to "Kafka". But that said, it is a quiet masterpiece, a brave film that operates solely on its own terms and offers the viewer absolutely no quarter nor compromise. Surrender yourself and your time to the film's immediacy, just as the survivors on the film's spartan space station give themselves over to the unknowable forces on the planet, and you will probably be as moved as I was.
Based on Stanislaw Lem's novel and reprising the material in Andrei Tarkovsky's epic Russian film, Soderbergh's "Solaris" is only incidentally science fiction. It's more a thin skein of science fiction stretched taut across a dense, luminous surface of human pain, of the anguish and fallibility of memory, of love, of love lost, of the possibility of redemption. That's really what Soderberg wants to cut down into, and he wields a brutally sharp scalpel here.
Have you lost the thing you loved most in your life? Have you lost true love? Fine: what would you do if you thought you could reclaim it, salvage the moment you lost it, make things right again?
What would that be worth to you?
What would you do to get it?
That, in essence, is "Solaris". Oh yes, to be sure, the plot is about a space station orbiting the mysterious planet Solaris; the station's corporate owners have lost contact with it, and a rescue team is equally silent. The DBA Corporation turns to Clooney's Chris Kelvin (bravely and masterfully played by George Clooney, who owns this film), a psychologist who was a colleague of the station's chief scientist Gibarian, who had sent across a mysterious invitation to Kelvin before the first security team had been dispatched. He arrives to a scene of unnervingly, creepily quiet chaos, with Gibarian dead and the rest of the crew having retreated to their separate quarters, plagued by what they contend are visions.
Much like Polanski's "The Ninth Gate", "Solaris" suffered from a marketing campaign that perhaps emphasized too much the science fiction elements of the piece. The space station, the planet, the sere, technical, sleek surfaces of the examination rooms and sleeping quarters are merely palletes on which Clooney paints his own internal torment and very private suffering, writ large; the space setting is, like Holocaust-era Warsaw in "The Pianist", almost incidental to the movie. This film could have been set anywhere---underground, in the desert, in a skyscraper penthouse.
Soderbergh directs deftly, fluidly, using his technically precise sets as counterpoints to the choices the crew of the space station must make. The acting here is top-notch: Clooney turns in a laser-perfect performance, Natasha McElhone is remarkably poised and completely convincing, Jeremy Davies provides a few wan laughs as the unnerved Snow, and Viola Davis fights the good fight as Gordon, who absolutely, positively will not let the Human Race be undone by good intentions. And here, by the way, is just one of trillions of deft little touches Soderbergh uses, this one hinting of alien invasion: what better way for some vast intelligence to undermine humanity than by burrowing at us through our emotions?
For all the breathtaking expansiveness of the shots, which draw favorable comparison with Kubrick's work in 2001, this is an interior movie, and the film lives or dies on the chemistry and work between Clooney and McElhone. For my money, they are remarkable together. Each scene between them, each line, each breath, each facial contortion, tells; there is not a wasted sequence or shot here, and technically this may very well be Soderbergh's most compact, complete, and least pretentious film.
Tragedy, horror story, dark night of the soul, fable of a love lost---whatever it is, "Solaris" is unforgettable.
Movie Review: Great remake
Summary: 5 Stars
Perception meets reality as a man comes face to face, not with his dead ex lover, but his memories of her, which are not as complete as he would like them. A nebula like planet dubbed Solaris does this to everyone in its proximity, driving many of them to suicide or insanity. Many of the reveals past this basic explanation are spoilers, which I don't want to get into here.
Top to bottom, one of the better movies of the last ten years or so, Solaris features top shelf acting, cinematography, directing, and a glue-like sound scheme that solidifies the focus of this "sci-fi" film set in the near future. To be frank, Solaris could be set in modern day at one of the 94 million Starbucks locations in America, and the message would be the same. The setting is merely a distant backdrop for a story that intentionally asks more questions than it answers. As it explains itself, the issues it deals with are simply too much to answer, the key is to stop looking for them and realize that frustration, uncertainty and pain are just as much a part of life as pleasure, closure and love. At issue among other things, are whether not we can be betrayed by our memories. Yes we can, at least in this film where they take physical form. and remove the ability for the protagonist to shelter himself from the truth. The "Villain here" is psychological, taking away the one form of security everyone on earth uses to preserve their sanity. He takes away their ability to lie to themselves. Definitely a universal theme, who of us isn't victim of nostalgia at some point? As a result, with the enemies of each space station crew member being a ghost from their past, the un killable character element here actually has quite a bit of weight to it. After all, the enemies are memories at first, then, doubt and confusion. This movie accurately posits that emotions have much more power than physical demons, or psychologists all around the world would be looking for new clients after each session.
In his best performance to date , George Clooney stars as Chris Kelvin, a man who has lost his girlfriend Raya to tragic circumstances and can't seem to recuperate. In the 15 minutes used to set up the relationship these two shared, there is more depth and connection created by director Steve Sorderbergh than the entirety of most Romantic movies. IT also carries much more weight and realistic humor, matching two characters with equal intellect for their conversations. Natascha McElhone matches Clooney both in the very realistic state of flashbacks, and oddly, the dreamlike state of present day action most of the story takes place in. Patient and deliberate, but never boring, the pacing here is perfect for the material and characters. There is no room for a large ensemble cast in a story about intimacy, thus the isolation of the space station serves well to justify the low cast population. When his friend and fellow scientist Gibarean asks Kelvin to join him on the space station to try and understand the large number of deaths, Kelvin understandably accepts. His lack of attachment to anything since he Lost Raya leaves him no reason not to, especially if it offers a chance at reuniting with an old friend.
Sorderbergh here, not surprisingly, excels at a movie that despite its large scope seems to be more in tune with his skills, character development and well framed dialogue. Set up shots are not always the wide angle sort as would usually be approached in sci-fi movies, but often left to more grounding ones like rainfall and other more relatable sights. Any alien feel inherent in many genre movies is dissolved. What few supporting characters are present are allowed room to breathe and create their own identities. Even more impressive is the believability with which all of their dialogue is delivered. It may be a sign of decaying movie talent, but the consistency of "voice" is flawless even in the midst of discussing pretty high end concepts, from abortion to depression to God itself. It's a relief, and as a result, none of it feels condescending, if anything we feel for characters so intellectual and likeable who are unable to get past major hurdles in their shared and separate lives.
Sound design carries the mood of this movie, almost as much as the direction and great set design. Dialogue carries shots into each other, music is always appropriate, and the moments of real intensity are balanced perfectly.
original review at ess-bee.com
Movie Review: ...and Death will have no dominion.
Summary: 5 Stars
WARNING: Solaris has a double twist/surprise element in it which definitely adds to the impact of the story. This review doesn't give them away but others do. If you don't know the story and want to watch this movie, you really shouldn't read some of the other reviews. I strongly encourage any future reviewers to not give away any of the surprise elements!
I specifically looked up "Solaris" here on amazon to give it five stars because it's my favorite sci-fi film of all time. I was staggered to find out it's a remake of a 1972 russian film of a polish book. I'm definitely going to watch and read those.
It's perverse to call this a sci-fi film though, since it merely uses science as a means to an end which could have been achieved in any other suitably fantastic way. I think in our day though it's especially appropriate to use science as that means.
I'm really not surprised at how extreme the reviews have been... some demanding 0 stars, others 5. Criticisms include that it's slow or boring, and that it's emotionally inert or emotionless. I think rather that this is a mood deliberately set to reflect the depression of the protagonist... he chooses to not feel because otherwise he would only feel pain. His life is dull and hard after having been filled with a bright light of hope and love. He moves slowly and deliberately in it with controlled motion... almost like a robot? He's a bastion of strength, but he's hollow on the inside. He's narcotized himself... he sleeps.
And then he awakens, metaphorically and literally, and the whole movie takes a radical new direction. As soon as I saw what he did on his first awakening I was blown away. Was that courage? Was it fear? Whatever it was, it was the first time he had reacted instead of just acted in years! I don't know but something seemed so horribly right about it and it grabbed me!
The film is set on a space research station with only three living occupants... sort of. It's dark, it's cold, it's metal, it's austere, it's floating alone in space orbiting a strange celestial phenomenon. As a counterpoint to this, much of the film is told via flashbacks of Clooney's intimate, often very warm memories. Also, almost every scene is filled with human bodies, especially human faces... of all objects, the one that most impresses itself on our memory.
The theme of (in)completeness and of what makes us complete is central to the film. So too are the notions of dream and reality, and the question of which we are. Also, the issues of the nature of representation/represented and the pervasiveness of the mental. I fashion myself a panpsychist so I loved this. Finally there's the issue of how to control is to destroy. The whole film can be read as a battle between two basic urges... the one to control, guard against, or destroy; the other to surrendur, understand, and love. Each urge is manifest in each character. In the scientist the former is dominant (science as understanding but only via or for the sake of control?). In Clooney, the latter is dominant. In the pilot, the urges are mutually-annihilating, resulting in apathy. I won't spoil it by telling you which urge wins. (They both do in their way!)
As you may have gathered from this and other reviews, this is an unabashedly "philosophical" film... there's so much ground covered by it in so many ways so fast, with so much left unsaid or only hinted at that it's hard to take in at first. When I finished watching Solaris for the first time I was just kind of quiet. I didn't know how to characterize what I had seen. I knew it was basically good but not much more. But so many of the images and scenes and themes kept coming to me in the following weeks and months... I started thinking of how the film was doing or saying something that I had never realized before... that I eventually came to think it was really quite extraordinary. Later viewings only reinforced this opinion.
You may end up completely uninterested in it. Then again you may find that you have the capacity to really enjoy this film and find that you want to buy it to watch over and over again! Either way, give it a try.
Final words: "We don't have to think like that anymore."