n a space station orbiting a distant planet, level-headed cosmonauts are hallucinating. A panel of bureaucrats and scientist convene to determine the fate of the station -- abandon the unprofitable project, or push forward? The Solaris space station is given a last reprieve, and a scientist/psychologist, Chris, is sent there to assess the situation.
He arrives and finds things strangely quiet -- everything has an unnatural air of isolation and disorder. One of Chris's first discoveries is that one of the three scientists on Solaris, a friend of Chris's, has committed suicide and left him a videotaped farewell. Stunned, Chris views the tape, looking for answers. Throughout his friend's good-bye and his description of the strange happenings aboard the station, Chris sees a small girl flit in and out of the frame. As if he could see Chris's surprise, his friend makes note of the girl, and wearily, soberly tells him that she is real, and that he too, will experience such things. These beings are the living embodiment of unconscious dreams and obsessions. Unnerved, the psychologist beds down for the night.
Chris stirs in his sleep and sees his beloved (but suicided) wife slipping into bed with him, seemingly real enough, human enough. She finds nothing incongruous or disturbing about their situation and greets him warmly. Terribly disturbed, Chris lures her into a shuttle and ignites it, killing her. That night she is back, with no remembrance or resentment, with only love and a need to be near him. She is so terribly real, becoming more self-aware every hour, that Chris finds himself willingly drawn to her, and through his loneliness accepts the bizarre and impossible as normal and desirable. But the other scientists on the station know that, although she is real, she is alien, and they push Chris to make hard choices among duty, science, love and reason.
Philosophy, love and science
Solaris is a film with no visible borders or seams. Every vista, every being in it is invested with an enigmatic kernel of sentience that paints life on Earth as equally alien and mysterious as anything to be found in the rest of the cosmos. Its balance of intro-/extra-spection and its penchant for vast spaces and emotions is reminiscent, but no imitator, of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Through subtlety and slowness, Solaris is disquieting and provocative.
Solaris is different enough from typical, assembly-line Hollywood fare that, for most, seeing it will be like visiting a foreign country. Viewers won't get McDonald's, and not everyone speaks English -- don't expect product placements, anti-intellectualism, easy stereotypes or laser-battles. Solaris's themes, although couched in a surreal environment, are very real and very Russian, framing the whole with a literary quality. Is genuine love discredited if its genesis lies in falsehood? Is truth wholly empirical? Is truth composed of, or compromised by, emotion? Solaris is an uncommon example in its genre, where emotion is equal to science, humanizing everything, but reducing not one scintilla of it to space opera or common drama.
A true art house film, Solaris will please viewers who are unafraid of subtitles and who delight in the letterbox format. And, with very little action or dialog spanning its almost three hours, stand warned -- it is not a film for the unpatient. Although its premise is slightly buried in its panorama, and the plot is a bit attenuated, Solaris is solidly, vibrantly worthwhile.
