Wednesday 4 August 2010

Solaris 2002 - directed by Steven Soderbergh










Chris Kelvin is played by George Clooney, and Rheya by Natascha McElhone. Borrowing heavily from the Tarkovsky film, this version of Solaris is a meditative psychodrama set almost entirely on a space station, adding flashbacks to the previous experiences of its main characters on Earth.



















A psychologist still dealing with the loss of his wife, Chris Kelvin receives a disturbing video message from a friend and scientist, Gibarian, asking for Chris' help and that he must come to the enigmatic planet, Solaris. He agrees to go on the mission to Solaris as a last attempt to recover the crew. Kelvin, arriving at the space station, quickly learns that members of the crew have died (or even disappeared) under mysterious circumstances with the only two surviving members reluctant to explain the cause. After shockingly encountering his dead wife alive again, Chris discovers that Solaris has been creating physical replications of people familiar to each crew member. Up until the end, Chris struggles with the questions of Solaris' motivation, his beliefs and memories, and reconciling what was lost with an opportunity for a second chance.















To me the film is one about the emotions that drive us, the ones with the repurcussions that we feel for years and years after we first encountered them. The movie is so delicate, so beautiful, it is sparse and isolating, and this is mirrored so perfectly with the idea of space, and being out there within it, unready to come back to earth because of questions that can't be answered and things that can't be explained. Solaris is given this charge of being both beautiful and tempting, the visuals of the movie are stunning and the soundtrack is perfectly aligned with the emotions experienced throughout the film.






There is a great moment of dialogue between George Clooney's character Chris and his friend Gibarian (who is the friend who has asked Chris to help bring the crew back to earth):

Chris Kelvin: What does Solaris want from us?
Gibarian: Why do you think it has to want something? This is why you have to leave. If you keep thinking there's a solution, you'll die here.
Chris Kelvin: I can't leave her. I'll figure it out.
Gibarian: Do you understand what I'm trying to tell you? There are no answers, only choices.

There is also a really moving moment between Chris and his wife (who is dead on earth but who has come back to him because of Solaris) She has the opportunity to ask her husband how it felt to be on earth without her:

Rheya Kelvin: Were you alone?
Chris Kelvin: Yes.
Rheya Kelvin: Was that difficult?
Chris Kelvin: It was easier than being with someone else.
















To me that moment of dialogue sums up how it feels to be in the wake of having loved and been loved.

This is an excellent movie.

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