Andrei Tarkovsky’s Solaris narrates the story of psychologist Kris Kelvin as he journeys to a Soviet space station orbiting the titular planet Solaris. Engulfed by an intelligent and sentient ocean, the planet responds to the arrival of Kelvin and the other scholars by confronting them with haunting mirages of individuals from their pasts. Hari, the simulacrum of Kelvin’s late wife, is one of these “guests” produced from within the closet of Kelvin’s mind. Using the trappings of Stanislaw Lem’s source novel and its nominal genre, Tarkovsky’s contemplative film is less of an exploration of outer space and more of a glimpse into the complex inner world of the individual. Toying with the sci-fi trope of the outlandish, pointy-eared space creature, the extraterrestrials in Solaris are eerily human. As aliens, Hari and the other guests reveal how we, as homo sapiens, are often foreign to ourselves—failing to comprehend the tangle of drives and desires that make up our subconscious. Tarkovsky’s cinematic feat ultimately offers a probing look at the human condition. While man strives to conquer the cosmos, the film suggests that an exploration and understanding of our inner world is both an exigent and a meaningful human aspiration.
‍
Solaris sheds a farcical light on interstellar exploration, revealing that a blind optimism underpins our reverence for scientific advancement. Rhetoric of spaceflight encompasses a wide swath of civic, social, and political themes, including progress narratives, technological advancement, and humanity. A journey “to infinity and beyond” seems a testament to the superior placement and progress of our species. In permitting us to escape the fetters of our home planet, space travel tends to be heralded as one of the greatest feats of human accomplishment. Yet, unlike other titles of its genre, Solaris is not a grandiose portrayal of cosmic voyage. Tarkovsky rejects the outwardly sensational aspect of his story, avoiding the kind of spectacular visual display traditionally encountered within the framework of science fiction. Kris' trip to Solaris is in fact a trivial event in the film's plot, as only minimal footage of his interplanetary excursion is shown. During the flight, rather than impressing us with futuristic shots of the galaxy, Tarkovsky depicts a close-up of Kris. His face, swallowed by shadows except for a slit of dim light across his blackened eyes, is examined by a dizzying, spiral camera movement that alternates between moving closer and farther away from its subject. As glimmers of light overlay the shot and Kris' eyes shut, the dreamlike sequence appears to be preparing us for a flashback—a noteworthy detail given what we know about the Solaris planet.
‍
Kris arrives at the shabby Solaris Station and the viewer observes an atmosphere of loneliness and disarray rather than a spectacle of glamor and high-tech gadgetry. While Kris stumbles into the late Gibarian's chamber, Tarkovsky elides the eye of the camera with that of Kris, revealing a chaotic mise-en-scène—an upturned swivel chair on a bed, crumpled notes, a bizarre crayon drawing plastered on a wall. Kris later encounters Dr. Sartorious in the hallway and we're introduced to a paranoid individual standing sentinel at the door of his room. In his curiously unnerved state, Sartorious lacks any of the heroism of bravery associated with the glamorized image of an astronaut. This pitiable portrait of man departed from Earth subverts the belief that our interstellar presence is the pinnacle of human advancement. Tarkovsky's assortment of dreary, underwhelming visual ultimately render the film an almost derisive examination of space travel. What force propels our inexorable desire for technological progress and advancement?
‍
Solaris insinuates that this driving factor is a quest for truth—or rather, absolute truth in the Platonic sense. When Sartorious describes Gibarian's suicide as a cowardly act, his reasoning is that Gibarian escaped from his "duty to truth." The irony of the film's plot is that, while the crewmembers attempt to study Solaris, Solaris actually conducts an experiment on them through the manifestation of guests. An introspective catalyst for probing the deepest regions of the human soul, the ocean planet also functions as a visual representation of man's subconscious. Our inner thoughts and stirrings, oftentimes inscrutable, are depicted through shots of the ocean's turbulent surface—undulating, pulsating, and swirling enigmatically. At one point in the film, Kris asks the wizened Dr. Snaut, "Snaut, why does [the ocean] torture us?" He responds: "We've lost our sense of the cosmic." Snaut's remark intimates that our search for meaning in an understanding of foreign planets and galaxies is a misguided effort. Man strives absurdly to expand his presence in the universe while he can barely grapple with his own thoughts.
‍
While not a sententious film by any means, Solaris communicates a subtle moral message, namely that truth is to be found not in a scientific concept of knowledge, but rather in an understanding of the self. Snaut reveals himself to be a surprisingly sagacious character by echoing this sentiment to Kris:Â "In his endless search for truth, man is condemned to knowledge."Â Man's infatuation with science, exhibited by his relentless pursuit of knowledge, stems from the belief that truth is a thing external to himself. In actuality, the quest for truth is more of a spiritual endeavor, involving a process of internal harmonization and reconciliation. While Kris is initially disturbed by the apparition of his late wife, he soon accepts and even loves her presence on the craft. Arguably the most intimate sequence between the two occurs when the station enters a period of zero gravity. In surreal fashion, the couple dangles weightlessly in the air, their bodies entwined. The scene is curated with an orchestration of mankind's greatest intellectual achievements, evoking connotations of human civilization, enlightenment and progress. While Tarkovsky's subjective play with time and intermingling of reality and fantasy correspond to the rules of the science fiction genre, he illustrates a display of nostalgia rather than futurism. As the lovers embrace, we hear the soundtrack of Bach's "Chorale Prelude in FÂ Minor." We observe an open book of Don Quixote float across the frame. Atop the library's shelves, we glimpse an oeuvre of Brueghel paintings and a bust of Socrates, te original worshipper of logic and rationality. This iconography, however, is a peripheral distraction. The image of Hari and Kris, seemingly suspended in time, is the moment's grand cynosure. By extension, the scene implies that man's attention ought to be directed inward in his search for progress.
‍
Near the end of the film, over a shot of the mystical Solaris ocean, we hear Kris' voice: "There are so few of us. A few billion altogether, a handful! Maybe we're here in order to experience people as a reason for love." Tarkovsky then cuts to a disoriented portrait of Kris. Supported arm-in-arm by Hari and Snaut, he stumbles down the station hallway until the frame is deluged by a glaring light—the light, metaphorically speaking, of spiritual enlightenment.
Andrei Tarkovsky’s Solaris narrates the story of psychologist Kris Kelvin as he journeys to a Soviet space station orbiting the titular planet Solaris. Engulfed by an intelligent and sentient ocean, the planet responds to the arrival of Kelvin and the other scholars by confronting them with haunting mirages of individuals from their pasts. Hari, the simulacrum of Kelvin’s late wife, is one of these “guests” produced from within the closet of Kelvin’s mind. Using the trappings of Stanislaw Lem’s source novel and its nominal genre, Tarkovsky’s contemplative film is less of an exploration of outer space and more of a glimpse into the complex inner world of the individual. Toying with the sci-fi trope of the outlandish, pointy-eared space creature, the extraterrestrials in Solaris are eerily human. As aliens, Hari and the other guests reveal how we, as homo sapiens, are often foreign to ourselves—failing to comprehend the tangle of drives and desires that make up our subconscious. Tarkovsky’s cinematic feat ultimately offers a probing look at the human condition. While man strives to conquer the cosmos, the film suggests that an exploration and understanding of our inner world is both an exigent and a meaningful human aspiration.
‍
Solaris sheds a farcical light on interstellar exploration, revealing that a blind optimism underpins our reverence for scientific advancement. Rhetoric of spaceflight encompasses a wide swath of civic, social, and political themes, including progress narratives, technological advancement, and humanity. A journey “to infinity and beyond” seems a testament to the superior placement and progress of our species. In permitting us to escape the fetters of our home planet, space travel tends to be heralded as one of the greatest feats of human accomplishment. Yet, unlike other titles of its genre, Solaris is not a grandiose portrayal of cosmic voyage. Tarkovsky rejects the outwardly sensational aspect of his story, avoiding the kind of spectacular visual display traditionally encountered within the framework of science fiction. Kris' trip to Solaris is in fact a trivial event in the film's plot, as only minimal footage of his interplanetary excursion is shown. During the flight, rather than impressing us with futuristic shots of the galaxy, Tarkovsky depicts a close-up of Kris. His face, swallowed by shadows except for a slit of dim light across his blackened eyes, is examined by a dizzying, spiral camera movement that alternates between moving closer and farther away from its subject. As glimmers of light overlay the shot and Kris' eyes shut, the dreamlike sequence appears to be preparing us for a flashback—a noteworthy detail given what we know about the Solaris planet.
‍
Kris arrives at the shabby Solaris Station and the viewer observes an atmosphere of loneliness and disarray rather than a spectacle of glamor and high-tech gadgetry. While Kris stumbles into the late Gibarian's chamber, Tarkovsky elides the eye of the camera with that of Kris, revealing a chaotic mise-en-scène—an upturned swivel chair on a bed, crumpled notes, a bizarre crayon drawing plastered on a wall. Kris later encounters Dr. Sartorious in the hallway and we're introduced to a paranoid individual standing sentinel at the door of his room. In his curiously unnerved state, Sartorious lacks any of the heroism of bravery associated with the glamorized image of an astronaut. This pitiable portrait of man departed from Earth subverts the belief that our interstellar presence is the pinnacle of human advancement. Tarkovsky's assortment of dreary, underwhelming visual ultimately render the film an almost derisive examination of space travel. What force propels our inexorable desire for technological progress and advancement?
‍
Solaris insinuates that this driving factor is a quest for truth—or rather, absolute truth in the Platonic sense. When Sartorious describes Gibarian's suicide as a cowardly act, his reasoning is that Gibarian escaped from his "duty to truth." The irony of the film's plot is that, while the crewmembers attempt to study Solaris, Solaris actually conducts an experiment on them through the manifestation of guests. An introspective catalyst for probing the deepest regions of the human soul, the ocean planet also functions as a visual representation of man's subconscious. Our inner thoughts and stirrings, oftentimes inscrutable, are depicted through shots of the ocean's turbulent surface—undulating, pulsating, and swirling enigmatically. At one point in the film, Kris asks the wizened Dr. Snaut, "Snaut, why does [the ocean] torture us?" He responds: "We've lost our sense of the cosmic." Snaut's remark intimates that our search for meaning in an understanding of foreign planets and galaxies is a misguided effort. Man strives absurdly to expand his presence in the universe while he can barely grapple with his own thoughts.
‍
While not a sententious film by any means, Solaris communicates a subtle moral message, namely that truth is to be found not in a scientific concept of knowledge, but rather in an understanding of the self. Snaut reveals himself to be a surprisingly sagacious character by echoing this sentiment to Kris:Â "In his endless search for truth, man is condemned to knowledge."Â Man's infatuation with science, exhibited by his relentless pursuit of knowledge, stems from the belief that truth is a thing external to himself. In actuality, the quest for truth is more of a spiritual endeavor, involving a process of internal harmonization and reconciliation. While Kris is initially disturbed by the apparition of his late wife, he soon accepts and even loves her presence on the craft. Arguably the most intimate sequence between the two occurs when the station enters a period of zero gravity. In surreal fashion, the couple dangles weightlessly in the air, their bodies entwined. The scene is curated with an orchestration of mankind's greatest intellectual achievements, evoking connotations of human civilization, enlightenment and progress. While Tarkovsky's subjective play with time and intermingling of reality and fantasy correspond to the rules of the science fiction genre, he illustrates a display of nostalgia rather than futurism. As the lovers embrace, we hear the soundtrack of Bach's "Chorale Prelude in FÂ Minor." We observe an open book of Don Quixote float across the frame. Atop the library's shelves, we glimpse an oeuvre of Brueghel paintings and a bust of Socrates, te original worshipper of logic and rationality. This iconography, however, is a peripheral distraction. The image of Hari and Kris, seemingly suspended in time, is the moment's grand cynosure. By extension, the scene implies that man's attention ought to be directed inward in his search for progress.
‍
Near the end of the film, over a shot of the mystical Solaris ocean, we hear Kris' voice: "There are so few of us. A few billion altogether, a handful! Maybe we're here in order to experience people as a reason for love." Tarkovsky then cuts to a disoriented portrait of Kris. Supported arm-in-arm by Hari and Snaut, he stumbles down the station hallway until the frame is deluged by a glaring light—the light, metaphorically speaking, of spiritual enlightenment.
Andrei Tarkovsky’s Solaris narrates the story of psychologist Kris Kelvin as he journeys to a Soviet space station orbiting the titular planet Solaris. Engulfed by an intelligent and sentient ocean, the planet responds to the arrival of Kelvin and the other scholars by confronting them with haunting mirages of individuals from their pasts. Hari, the simulacrum of Kelvin’s late wife, is one of these “guests” produced from within the closet of Kelvin’s mind. Using the trappings of Stanislaw Lem’s source novel and its nominal genre, Tarkovsky’s contemplative film is less of an exploration of outer space and more of a glimpse into the complex inner world of the individual. Toying with the sci-fi trope of the outlandish, pointy-eared space creature, the extraterrestrials in Solaris are eerily human. As aliens, Hari and the other guests reveal how we, as homo sapiens, are often foreign to ourselves—failing to comprehend the tangle of drives and desires that make up our subconscious. Tarkovsky’s cinematic feat ultimately offers a probing look at the human condition. While man strives to conquer the cosmos, the film suggests that an exploration and understanding of our inner world is both an exigent and a meaningful human aspiration.
‍
Solaris sheds a farcical light on interstellar exploration, revealing that a blind optimism underpins our reverence for scientific advancement. Rhetoric of spaceflight encompasses a wide swath of civic, social, and political themes, including progress narratives, technological advancement, and humanity. A journey “to infinity and beyond” seems a testament to the superior placement and progress of our species. In permitting us to escape the fetters of our home planet, space travel tends to be heralded as one of the greatest feats of human accomplishment. Yet, unlike other titles of its genre, Solaris is not a grandiose portrayal of cosmic voyage. Tarkovsky rejects the outwardly sensational aspect of his story, avoiding the kind of spectacular visual display traditionally encountered within the framework of science fiction. Kris' trip to Solaris is in fact a trivial event in the film's plot, as only minimal footage of his interplanetary excursion is shown. During the flight, rather than impressing us with futuristic shots of the galaxy, Tarkovsky depicts a close-up of Kris. His face, swallowed by shadows except for a slit of dim light across his blackened eyes, is examined by a dizzying, spiral camera movement that alternates between moving closer and farther away from its subject. As glimmers of light overlay the shot and Kris' eyes shut, the dreamlike sequence appears to be preparing us for a flashback—a noteworthy detail given what we know about the Solaris planet.
‍
Kris arrives at the shabby Solaris Station and the viewer observes an atmosphere of loneliness and disarray rather than a spectacle of glamor and high-tech gadgetry. While Kris stumbles into the late Gibarian's chamber, Tarkovsky elides the eye of the camera with that of Kris, revealing a chaotic mise-en-scène—an upturned swivel chair on a bed, crumpled notes, a bizarre crayon drawing plastered on a wall. Kris later encounters Dr. Sartorious in the hallway and we're introduced to a paranoid individual standing sentinel at the door of his room. In his curiously unnerved state, Sartorious lacks any of the heroism of bravery associated with the glamorized image of an astronaut. This pitiable portrait of man departed from Earth subverts the belief that our interstellar presence is the pinnacle of human advancement. Tarkovsky's assortment of dreary, underwhelming visual ultimately render the film an almost derisive examination of space travel. What force propels our inexorable desire for technological progress and advancement?
‍
Solaris insinuates that this driving factor is a quest for truth—or rather, absolute truth in the Platonic sense. When Sartorious describes Gibarian's suicide as a cowardly act, his reasoning is that Gibarian escaped from his "duty to truth." The irony of the film's plot is that, while the crewmembers attempt to study Solaris, Solaris actually conducts an experiment on them through the manifestation of guests. An introspective catalyst for probing the deepest regions of the human soul, the ocean planet also functions as a visual representation of man's subconscious. Our inner thoughts and stirrings, oftentimes inscrutable, are depicted through shots of the ocean's turbulent surface—undulating, pulsating, and swirling enigmatically. At one point in the film, Kris asks the wizened Dr. Snaut, "Snaut, why does [the ocean] torture us?" He responds: "We've lost our sense of the cosmic." Snaut's remark intimates that our search for meaning in an understanding of foreign planets and galaxies is a misguided effort. Man strives absurdly to expand his presence in the universe while he can barely grapple with his own thoughts.
‍
While not a sententious film by any means, Solaris communicates a subtle moral message, namely that truth is to be found not in a scientific concept of knowledge, but rather in an understanding of the self. Snaut reveals himself to be a surprisingly sagacious character by echoing this sentiment to Kris:Â "In his endless search for truth, man is condemned to knowledge."Â Man's infatuation with science, exhibited by his relentless pursuit of knowledge, stems from the belief that truth is a thing external to himself. In actuality, the quest for truth is more of a spiritual endeavor, involving a process of internal harmonization and reconciliation. While Kris is initially disturbed by the apparition of his late wife, he soon accepts and even loves her presence on the craft. Arguably the most intimate sequence between the two occurs when the station enters a period of zero gravity. In surreal fashion, the couple dangles weightlessly in the air, their bodies entwined. The scene is curated with an orchestration of mankind's greatest intellectual achievements, evoking connotations of human civilization, enlightenment and progress. While Tarkovsky's subjective play with time and intermingling of reality and fantasy correspond to the rules of the science fiction genre, he illustrates a display of nostalgia rather than futurism. As the lovers embrace, we hear the soundtrack of Bach's "Chorale Prelude in FÂ Minor." We observe an open book of Don Quixote float across the frame. Atop the library's shelves, we glimpse an oeuvre of Brueghel paintings and a bust of Socrates, te original worshipper of logic and rationality. This iconography, however, is a peripheral distraction. The image of Hari and Kris, seemingly suspended in time, is the moment's grand cynosure. By extension, the scene implies that man's attention ought to be directed inward in his search for progress.
‍
Near the end of the film, over a shot of the mystical Solaris ocean, we hear Kris' voice: "There are so few of us. A few billion altogether, a handful! Maybe we're here in order to experience people as a reason for love." Tarkovsky then cuts to a disoriented portrait of Kris. Supported arm-in-arm by Hari and Snaut, he stumbles down the station hallway until the frame is deluged by a glaring light—the light, metaphorically speaking, of spiritual enlightenment.
Andrei Tarkovsky’s Solaris narrates the story of psychologist Kris Kelvin as he journeys to a Soviet space station orbiting the titular planet Solaris. Engulfed by an intelligent and sentient ocean, the planet responds to the arrival of Kelvin and the other scholars by confronting them with haunting mirages of individuals from their pasts. Hari, the simulacrum of Kelvin’s late wife, is one of these “guests” produced from within the closet of Kelvin’s mind. Using the trappings of Stanislaw Lem’s source novel and its nominal genre, Tarkovsky’s contemplative film is less of an exploration of outer space and more of a glimpse into the complex inner world of the individual. Toying with the sci-fi trope of the outlandish, pointy-eared space creature, the extraterrestrials in Solaris are eerily human. As aliens, Hari and the other guests reveal how we, as homo sapiens, are often foreign to ourselves—failing to comprehend the tangle of drives and desires that make up our subconscious. Tarkovsky’s cinematic feat ultimately offers a probing look at the human condition. While man strives to conquer the cosmos, the film suggests that an exploration and understanding of our inner world is both an exigent and a meaningful human aspiration.
‍
Solaris sheds a farcical light on interstellar exploration, revealing that a blind optimism underpins our reverence for scientific advancement. Rhetoric of spaceflight encompasses a wide swath of civic, social, and political themes, including progress narratives, technological advancement, and humanity. A journey “to infinity and beyond” seems a testament to the superior placement and progress of our species. In permitting us to escape the fetters of our home planet, space travel tends to be heralded as one of the greatest feats of human accomplishment. Yet, unlike other titles of its genre, Solaris is not a grandiose portrayal of cosmic voyage. Tarkovsky rejects the outwardly sensational aspect of his story, avoiding the kind of spectacular visual display traditionally encountered within the framework of science fiction. Kris' trip to Solaris is in fact a trivial event in the film's plot, as only minimal footage of his interplanetary excursion is shown. During the flight, rather than impressing us with futuristic shots of the galaxy, Tarkovsky depicts a close-up of Kris. His face, swallowed by shadows except for a slit of dim light across his blackened eyes, is examined by a dizzying, spiral camera movement that alternates between moving closer and farther away from its subject. As glimmers of light overlay the shot and Kris' eyes shut, the dreamlike sequence appears to be preparing us for a flashback—a noteworthy detail given what we know about the Solaris planet.
‍
Kris arrives at the shabby Solaris Station and the viewer observes an atmosphere of loneliness and disarray rather than a spectacle of glamor and high-tech gadgetry. While Kris stumbles into the late Gibarian's chamber, Tarkovsky elides the eye of the camera with that of Kris, revealing a chaotic mise-en-scène—an upturned swivel chair on a bed, crumpled notes, a bizarre crayon drawing plastered on a wall. Kris later encounters Dr. Sartorious in the hallway and we're introduced to a paranoid individual standing sentinel at the door of his room. In his curiously unnerved state, Sartorious lacks any of the heroism of bravery associated with the glamorized image of an astronaut. This pitiable portrait of man departed from Earth subverts the belief that our interstellar presence is the pinnacle of human advancement. Tarkovsky's assortment of dreary, underwhelming visual ultimately render the film an almost derisive examination of space travel. What force propels our inexorable desire for technological progress and advancement?
‍
Solaris insinuates that this driving factor is a quest for truth—or rather, absolute truth in the Platonic sense. When Sartorious describes Gibarian's suicide as a cowardly act, his reasoning is that Gibarian escaped from his "duty to truth." The irony of the film's plot is that, while the crewmembers attempt to study Solaris, Solaris actually conducts an experiment on them through the manifestation of guests. An introspective catalyst for probing the deepest regions of the human soul, the ocean planet also functions as a visual representation of man's subconscious. Our inner thoughts and stirrings, oftentimes inscrutable, are depicted through shots of the ocean's turbulent surface—undulating, pulsating, and swirling enigmatically. At one point in the film, Kris asks the wizened Dr. Snaut, "Snaut, why does [the ocean] torture us?" He responds: "We've lost our sense of the cosmic." Snaut's remark intimates that our search for meaning in an understanding of foreign planets and galaxies is a misguided effort. Man strives absurdly to expand his presence in the universe while he can barely grapple with his own thoughts.
‍
While not a sententious film by any means, Solaris communicates a subtle moral message, namely that truth is to be found not in a scientific concept of knowledge, but rather in an understanding of the self. Snaut reveals himself to be a surprisingly sagacious character by echoing this sentiment to Kris:Â "In his endless search for truth, man is condemned to knowledge."Â Man's infatuation with science, exhibited by his relentless pursuit of knowledge, stems from the belief that truth is a thing external to himself. In actuality, the quest for truth is more of a spiritual endeavor, involving a process of internal harmonization and reconciliation. While Kris is initially disturbed by the apparition of his late wife, he soon accepts and even loves her presence on the craft. Arguably the most intimate sequence between the two occurs when the station enters a period of zero gravity. In surreal fashion, the couple dangles weightlessly in the air, their bodies entwined. The scene is curated with an orchestration of mankind's greatest intellectual achievements, evoking connotations of human civilization, enlightenment and progress. While Tarkovsky's subjective play with time and intermingling of reality and fantasy correspond to the rules of the science fiction genre, he illustrates a display of nostalgia rather than futurism. As the lovers embrace, we hear the soundtrack of Bach's "Chorale Prelude in FÂ Minor." We observe an open book of Don Quixote float across the frame. Atop the library's shelves, we glimpse an oeuvre of Brueghel paintings and a bust of Socrates, te original worshipper of logic and rationality. This iconography, however, is a peripheral distraction. The image of Hari and Kris, seemingly suspended in time, is the moment's grand cynosure. By extension, the scene implies that man's attention ought to be directed inward in his search for progress.
‍
Near the end of the film, over a shot of the mystical Solaris ocean, we hear Kris' voice: "There are so few of us. A few billion altogether, a handful! Maybe we're here in order to experience people as a reason for love." Tarkovsky then cuts to a disoriented portrait of Kris. Supported arm-in-arm by Hari and Snaut, he stumbles down the station hallway until the frame is deluged by a glaring light—the light, metaphorically speaking, of spiritual enlightenment.
Andrei Tarkovsky’s Solaris narrates the story of psychologist Kris Kelvin as he journeys to a Soviet space station orbiting the titular planet Solaris. Engulfed by an intelligent and sentient ocean, the planet responds to the arrival of Kelvin and the other scholars by confronting them with haunting mirages of individuals from their pasts. Hari, the simulacrum of Kelvin’s late wife, is one of these “guests” produced from within the closet of Kelvin’s mind. Using the trappings of Stanislaw Lem’s source novel and its nominal genre, Tarkovsky’s contemplative film is less of an exploration of outer space and more of a glimpse into the complex inner world of the individual. Toying with the sci-fi trope of the outlandish, pointy-eared space creature, the extraterrestrials in Solaris are eerily human. As aliens, Hari and the other guests reveal how we, as homo sapiens, are often foreign to ourselves—failing to comprehend the tangle of drives and desires that make up our subconscious. Tarkovsky’s cinematic feat ultimately offers a probing look at the human condition. While man strives to conquer the cosmos, the film suggests that an exploration and understanding of our inner world is both an exigent and a meaningful human aspiration.
‍
Solaris sheds a farcical light on interstellar exploration, revealing that a blind optimism underpins our reverence for scientific advancement. Rhetoric of spaceflight encompasses a wide swath of civic, social, and political themes, including progress narratives, technological advancement, and humanity. A journey “to infinity and beyond” seems a testament to the superior placement and progress of our species. In permitting us to escape the fetters of our home planet, space travel tends to be heralded as one of the greatest feats of human accomplishment. Yet, unlike other titles of its genre, Solaris is not a grandiose portrayal of cosmic voyage. Tarkovsky rejects the outwardly sensational aspect of his story, avoiding the kind of spectacular visual display traditionally encountered within the framework of science fiction. Kris' trip to Solaris is in fact a trivial event in the film's plot, as only minimal footage of his interplanetary excursion is shown. During the flight, rather than impressing us with futuristic shots of the galaxy, Tarkovsky depicts a close-up of Kris. His face, swallowed by shadows except for a slit of dim light across his blackened eyes, is examined by a dizzying, spiral camera movement that alternates between moving closer and farther away from its subject. As glimmers of light overlay the shot and Kris' eyes shut, the dreamlike sequence appears to be preparing us for a flashback—a noteworthy detail given what we know about the Solaris planet.
‍
Kris arrives at the shabby Solaris Station and the viewer observes an atmosphere of loneliness and disarray rather than a spectacle of glamor and high-tech gadgetry. While Kris stumbles into the late Gibarian's chamber, Tarkovsky elides the eye of the camera with that of Kris, revealing a chaotic mise-en-scène—an upturned swivel chair on a bed, crumpled notes, a bizarre crayon drawing plastered on a wall. Kris later encounters Dr. Sartorious in the hallway and we're introduced to a paranoid individual standing sentinel at the door of his room. In his curiously unnerved state, Sartorious lacks any of the heroism of bravery associated with the glamorized image of an astronaut. This pitiable portrait of man departed from Earth subverts the belief that our interstellar presence is the pinnacle of human advancement. Tarkovsky's assortment of dreary, underwhelming visual ultimately render the film an almost derisive examination of space travel. What force propels our inexorable desire for technological progress and advancement?
‍
Solaris insinuates that this driving factor is a quest for truth—or rather, absolute truth in the Platonic sense. When Sartorious describes Gibarian's suicide as a cowardly act, his reasoning is that Gibarian escaped from his "duty to truth." The irony of the film's plot is that, while the crewmembers attempt to study Solaris, Solaris actually conducts an experiment on them through the manifestation of guests. An introspective catalyst for probing the deepest regions of the human soul, the ocean planet also functions as a visual representation of man's subconscious. Our inner thoughts and stirrings, oftentimes inscrutable, are depicted through shots of the ocean's turbulent surface—undulating, pulsating, and swirling enigmatically. At one point in the film, Kris asks the wizened Dr. Snaut, "Snaut, why does [the ocean] torture us?" He responds: "We've lost our sense of the cosmic." Snaut's remark intimates that our search for meaning in an understanding of foreign planets and galaxies is a misguided effort. Man strives absurdly to expand his presence in the universe while he can barely grapple with his own thoughts.
‍
While not a sententious film by any means, Solaris communicates a subtle moral message, namely that truth is to be found not in a scientific concept of knowledge, but rather in an understanding of the self. Snaut reveals himself to be a surprisingly sagacious character by echoing this sentiment to Kris:Â "In his endless search for truth, man is condemned to knowledge."Â Man's infatuation with science, exhibited by his relentless pursuit of knowledge, stems from the belief that truth is a thing external to himself. In actuality, the quest for truth is more of a spiritual endeavor, involving a process of internal harmonization and reconciliation. While Kris is initially disturbed by the apparition of his late wife, he soon accepts and even loves her presence on the craft. Arguably the most intimate sequence between the two occurs when the station enters a period of zero gravity. In surreal fashion, the couple dangles weightlessly in the air, their bodies entwined. The scene is curated with an orchestration of mankind's greatest intellectual achievements, evoking connotations of human civilization, enlightenment and progress. While Tarkovsky's subjective play with time and intermingling of reality and fantasy correspond to the rules of the science fiction genre, he illustrates a display of nostalgia rather than futurism. As the lovers embrace, we hear the soundtrack of Bach's "Chorale Prelude in FÂ Minor." We observe an open book of Don Quixote float across the frame. Atop the library's shelves, we glimpse an oeuvre of Brueghel paintings and a bust of Socrates, te original worshipper of logic and rationality. This iconography, however, is a peripheral distraction. The image of Hari and Kris, seemingly suspended in time, is the moment's grand cynosure. By extension, the scene implies that man's attention ought to be directed inward in his search for progress.
‍
Near the end of the film, over a shot of the mystical Solaris ocean, we hear Kris' voice: "There are so few of us. A few billion altogether, a handful! Maybe we're here in order to experience people as a reason for love." Tarkovsky then cuts to a disoriented portrait of Kris. Supported arm-in-arm by Hari and Snaut, he stumbles down the station hallway until the frame is deluged by a glaring light—the light, metaphorically speaking, of spiritual enlightenment.
