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For some reason that movie always has strong emotional impact on you - I am of course talking about the 1972 Russian movie.
I still remember how we were expecting it, all of us having read and loved the novel. At the time we didn't know Tarkovsky from Trotsky, and we concentrated on simple and naive, sometimes plain silly (oscilloscopes lying on their sides, with a beam going up, and up... and up again... analog voltmeter wrapped in plastic in Kris' cabin's shelf...) "futuristic" interiors and the technical side.
With later viewings the movie took upon a totally different meaning, it matured with us. Changed our focal points, our understanding of some subtle hints and undercurrents... what has not changed was the effect it kept having on us... well, maybe it is presumptuous to mix "us" and "me", but I know I speak for some her too.
When I saw it again a couple of days ago, it was like a new film. Several years passed, enough to erase the memories of some scenes, some dialogues, and enough to turn it into a new discovery. A wonderful new discovery.
This truly is one of the most under-rated, yet timeless, films with more depth than you can possibly cover in just a couple of viewings. I am not going to bother with speaking much of performances - they are all top notch, but Natalia Bondarchuk truly shines. Virtually unknown as actress, even though she comes from a very important cinema family, she does marvelous job.
Follow Ups:
Tarkovsky's films affect me emotionally also. Sometimes, as in the case of "Mirror", I'm not even sure why, but it's there and very real.
I think it was the 60's. In any case, the story was fine for it's time.
But I reread it after watching the Russian film. It has aged, that theme
has been done many times in scifi and many of those efforts were better than Solaris.
This aside from the fact that the subject of Solaris at it's base is not about contact problems/interactions with alien thought processes...at least not external ones.
Also, one will never really 'get' Solaris if one divorces it from or loses awareness of the Zeitgeist of the nation/times/culture that created it.
BTW, many of the (unnamed) films you mention that followed Solaris borrowed heavily and/or were inspired by it.
J.B.
Most fiction ages, and this falls into that category in a number of ways.
So what we have is a work that was good for it's time. That's all.
Of course others borrowed, I don't know of any genre that developed it's themes as it went along as much as scifi did.
Like Vic, you see this as ahht. I see it as scifi. You know, go to alien planet, there's an alien there, things happen.
To tell ya the truth, I feel scifi and that whole psychological fiction thing is a very awkward marriage.
Heart of Darkness this ain't...
I'm genuinely interested.
I prob have read a thousand scifi books. Problems in dealing with alien cultures is a common theme, but usually a minor part of the plot, or a subplot.
My 2nd favorite Star Trek TNG episode is Darmok, the one where the captain of this race kidnaps Picard and both go to the surface of the planet. There they face some nasty scifi monster and learn to communicate
by neccesity.
There isn't much in film, and when I say there isn't much, it's all space opera, not sci fi...
The exceptions stand out like beacons to me because they are real sci fi.
You know, part of Contact is deciphering and then the message, and then trying to figure out the intent. I love that movie, few books deal have as much sci in their fi as that one.
If you just want some good scifi, I would gladly suggest a few books.
An old fave of mine is Midite at the Well of Souls.
http://www.amazon.com/Midnight-Well-Souls-Jack-Chalker/dp/0743435222/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1276882113&sr=1-1
I guess I misunderstood. I thought you were talking about FILMS when you referred to "many of those" other "efforts", this being the Film Forum.
I was hoping to find an unseen gem or two.
*
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Glad I could help you.
;O)
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+
Just not what you think...
Solaris is about a failure to communicate (to borrow an old phrase)
Difficulties in communication is a common theme in scifi. It's been done hundreds of times, quite a few of them were better than Solaris
Solaris was fine for it's time. Aspects of scifi are additive, alien race becomes alien races and then cultures and then cultural clashes and alliances and wars lasting millenia and on
and on.
Nowadays that would be just a subplot.
> > > "Difficulties in communication is a common theme in scifi. It's been done hundreds of times, quite a few of them were better than Solaris."IMO, Solaris (along with "Fiasco," "The Invincible" and "Eden") is still the definitive story for expressing the futility of any meaningful contact with a truly alien mind. I think Lem's 'no final outcome' approach to SciFi writing is unsurpassed and holds up very nicely to this day, though Arkady and Boris Strugatsky come close in "Roadside Picnic," as does Vladimir Savchenko in "Self Discovery."
Of course, none of those amateurs can compete with Joe Menosky's "no comprende, senor - we only speak English in the form of historical allegory" masterwork "Darmok."
"We lived for days on nothing but food and water." W.C. Fields
Edits: 06/18/10
Along with..?We were talking about Solaris, not Solaris and everything including the kitchen sink..
If an alien were sufficiently different, communication might not be possible. Heck we might not even know they were there. But people manage to
do things you would think were impossible, and fairly often.Self Discovery is new to me, I just ordered it from Amazon.
Haven't read Roadside Picnic, but it's out of print and absurdly expensive.
Edits: 06/18/10 06/18/10
In case you missed that fact - this is Film forum, not Sci-Fi.
Your approach to such films is still that of a teenager... we all go through stages like that. Nothing's wrong with that, except that it blocks your perception of what FILMS are about. You are so engrossed in the subject material that artistic means, human insight and emotions are becoming... ahem... alien to you.
I mentioned before - Solaris is NOT about some "contact"... it is about human struggle with self-identity, love, meaning of life, laments, conscience, guilt, self-examination... these are universal things that happen to anyone, in any country, on any planet. That all that is happening on some "station" has little significance. That's what makes that movie so different from say, the 2001, which is a lot of silly effects filled with much hot air, and not much more. Solaris could have been very well set in a 14th century France, with the same impact and trepidations. THAT is its strong point, not some "contact".
I love this place.Snorlaris is about going to a weird planet and finding alien life and not being able to deal with it, much less communicate. You just dodged the whole freaking plot of the movie.
It was based on a book, and the book was Russian scifi. I happen to love Russian scifi, but as with all things Russian it rises and falls with the strengths and weaknesses of the Russian culture.
OK, maybe I exaggerate a bit, but you get the point.
I don't see this as a film forum, I see it as a poseur forum. I also see your implied restriction about not discussing the origins of a film a childish fit of pique.
Edits: 06/22/10
Coming from a sci-fi expert, that is quite a whopper.
I don't think you can, but try anyway.
Bummer!
.
the author is Polish, right? So it's a Polish Science fiction novel.
Stupidity is NOT a victimless crime.
For some reason I thought he was Russian.My bad.
That was the first book I read by that author, maybe it was the ambiance...
Edits: 06/25/10
there are just so many of them. It is the treatment that matters, of course.
of great directors of the past thirty years.
Similar to your experience, I watched "Damnation" by Bela Tarr, again, after not having seen it for a some time (under a year; I find I like it so much I watch it, repeatedly, with joy each time) and it also has so many layers, so much subtlety, that I liked it more, as has been the case each time. The lead actor is a marvel, as is the cheating wife.
If you haven't, may I strongly urge you to invest the many hours to see, "Satantango?" It ranks with the greatest films ever made, certainly, though it has some scenes which are very, very difficult to watch--- violent, but in NO way gratuitous. In this respect, it is not dissimilar to the other long masterpiece, and the only modern film in its class, "Berlin Alexanderplatz."
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