Recently Seen: Solaris

[blufive]

(Soderbergh, not Tarkovsky)
[IMDB]

[Note: It's a very long time (at least 15 years) since I read the book, and I've not seen the Tarkovsky film.]

Psychologist Chris Kelvin is sent to a research station orbiting Solaris to investigate the mysterious events that have occurred there. He finds his friend, the mission's commander, dead, along with several of the crew. The two survivors won't discuss what happened.

After his first night on the station, he wakes to find his dead wife alive in his bed. He is, understandably, somewhat disturbed by this.


There's much soul-searching and speculation on the nature of Identity, Grief and Conciousness, which sounds dull described so simply, but isn't.

It's a very thoughtful film, though I have vague recollections of the book making much more mileage out of Solaris itself - its (presumed) sentience, motives and utterly alien nature. To be expected, really - most books longer than about 40 pages need to be brutally abridged to fit into a typical movie length.

Don't be put off by its lack of box-office success. It's a highbrow, art-house SF movie - it was never going to make gazillions.

The visual effects used to depict Solaris are beautiful in their own right - very reminiscent of the Sun viewed in esoteric wavelengths - and a couple of weeks later, I'm still sufficiently haunted by the music to be looking up details of the soundtrack album.

Comments

[eggwhite.livejournal.com]

I watched the original just the other weekend - There's a DVD back in the Forest. I meant to catch the remake in the Cinema but managed to miss it entirely (it was there for about a week). If it's also a good film I might consider picking up the DVD.