Solaris

I always find it interesting to approach a movie that has people so polarized - in this case "it was sooooo slow" vs. "uplifting and incredible." That seems to go for the critics as well. My reaction was neither.

I am predisposed to like this kind of science fiction - the low key and wonderful "Gattaca" comes to mind. I found the story very intriguing and atmospheric and it held my interest - at the same time I felt something was missing and it just wasn't as rich, complex and good as it should have been.

I am not sure why, I think the key for me is that I was not able to really get emotionally involved with the love story - and this is first and foremost a love story. I have trouble with most love stories, due to my own particular biases, so there has to be a lot there to really identify with it. I think the problem here was the casting and acting - it could have been a lot better. The woman playing Gordon was rather flat as well.

Also the script was a little too obvious.

All in all, an interesting film that I am glad I saw, but I can't really get worked up about it.

While Soderbergh's Solaris may well be a work of art in its own right, I certainly pity those who haven't read the book or at least seen Tarkovsky's 1972 original adaptation, which is a lot more faithful to Lem's novel in its scope, if not in its vision. Soderbergh has managed to leave out just about everything that could justify the title (as Lem himself put it, if he had set out to write a book about space romance, he would have called it Love in Outer Space, not Solaris). So if you want to know the story, go and read the novel.

That said, I enjoyed Jeremy Davis as Snow, and the score is very good.

Solaris (2002)

Some might find Solaris slow, or slick, or opaque, and I think it is all those things and for a good reason. Unlike Moon (2009), which is like a Tom Waits (and simplified) version of the same core theme, or 2001 (1968), which has something utterly impersonal to distinguish it, Solaris is a love story. And you are meant to float--or better, you are meant to be weightless--in the experience.

The music (evocative dreamy music, by Cliff Martinez) alone makes clear we are in suspension. It's a trip, in the druggy sense and in spiritual sense. We have to figure out what these other beings really are (they look human, and some of them are) and we have to decide what it means to be alive (is it simply self-awareness?). We have to even decide whether the characters should live in the lie of some invented reality that feels utterly real, or to go for the old fashioned real thing and leave love behind.

If it's love at all. After awhile you realize it's a kind a narcissism. And then you wonder why not? Whatever works, right?

The movie is gently confusing. The lead is George Clooney. The whole movie is George Clooney. His love interest (undefined for here) is played by the big-eyed Natascha McElhone. If her staring eyes and gentle loving neediness seem a little overdone, it's for good reason. As you'll see (blame George). And the planet itself, exerting some kind of power over the consciousness of the humans on this floating (large) spaceship, represents something approaching God in its power and mystery. It's an atheist's movie, I'm sure, but filled with spiritual and human optimism.

Most viewers don't know that this is a remake, and hard core film buffs dismiss this American Steven Soderbergh version as Hollywood at its worst (big budget, sentimental, pretty beyond reason). The earlier Soviet version (from 1972) is really interesting, too, and parts of it are even slower. On purpose. Other parts seem dated, to me, and if I think of the effects and the idea as ahead of its time, I remind myself that this earlier one is after, not before, Kubrick's Space Odyssey and so the whole progression is skewed. The Soviet version also seems more sexist, more male dominant, and whatever demeaning qualities exist in this more recent one, they seem more in balance, man to woman, at least in a less male gaze way.

But academic analysis creeps in on a movie that is really much more about experiencing its mood, its tragedy and hope, and its delicate floating beauty, which I seem to enjoy without thinking too hard. There are moments, including the Michelangelo creation scene with the boy (yes!), that push it far too far (and seem Kubrick inspired, without Kubrick's icy sensibility). You might also be able to edit it differently to make it more compact. But these are debates to have once you've seen the movie. A warning: it's depressing to some people. To me, though, it's soothing. And the open ended qualities might make you want to see it again.

Since I had just read Lem's novel Solaris and had in the past seen the 1972 Russian movie Solyaris, I was interested in seeing the new Solaris. Someone not familiar with the story may well be baffled by the movie. Those who have read the book will recognize the plot up to close to the end, where the movie veers off in its own attempt for a resolution that Lem did not seem to think necessary to provide in the novel.

I was disappointed that the movie had almost nothing to say or show about the sentient ocean of Solaris and humanity's failure to comprehend it. The book went into great detail in describing the fantastic phenomena of the ocean and the various failed theories to explain them. In fact I think that was the central theme of the book which is almost completely lost in the movie.

There are a number of good things about this movie, but ultimately it felt to me like a lost opportunity. It raised provocative psychological issues but never carried me away or led me to anything like an epiphany. In the latter half, I was in fact a bit bored. It certainly isn't enthralling like Tarkovsky's version. Rheya's character is better developed, particularly her own psychological trauma in being a "creation" (Tarkovsky's Rheya was something of a naif in comparison). But what I missed from Tarkovsky's version is the sense of humor (this one is stiflingly earnest) and the evocative and poignant use of Bach chorales in the soundtrack. The soundtrack to this one is intriguing (a la Brian Eno, Ligeti, and Thomas Newman's scores for The Player and American Beauty), but I eventually found myself desperately longing for a cadence. Lacking the feeling of redemption communicated musically in Tarkovsky's version, this one had to rely on ham-handed statements of fact. And finally, I can't help remarking that neither Tarkovsky nor Soderbergh really convey the element of shame and sexual deviance that played such an important part in Lem's original. Both place the emphasis instead on guilt, which isn't quite the same thing, is it?