April Double Bill: Solaris

[Foxbat]

Please put all your thoughts, ideas, rants/raves, literary gesticulations here

[Winters_Sorrow]

Which version of Solaris is it to be btw? (not sure how faithful the remake is to the original)

[ravenus]

My original request was for the Soderbergh version but it'd be great to include comment on the Tarkovski film too, but FIRST OFF...

Soderbergh's film is NOT a remake of the Tarkovski film. Both are adaptations of Polish author Stanislav Tem's book of the same name, and from what I hear Soderbergh's film is more faithful to the concerns and tone of the book.

[Foxbat]

Yes, Soderbergh's version was the one. Sorry. I should have made that clear.

[Foxbat]

After watching this movie for the first time, I sit here pondering its meaning.

First of all: George Clooney. I'm not too keen on him as an actor but consider this movie to be one of his finest moments. He surprised me big time with his portayal of the guilt ridden psychologist (or is that psychiatrist?).
Beautifully shot and the planet Solaris would make a great sort of Lava Lamp/Plasma Globe for any modern living room

As to the story: not so much a Science Fiction Movie as a mirror of the Human Condition that happens to be set in space. A love story? A story of redemption and second chances? Probably a bit of both. The planet itself? God? A mindless force endlessly reproducing scenarios from our past? Either way it's got me thinking. I enjoyed it but definitely feel that I need to watch it again.

[ravenus]

For those who have not seen the film, this post may contain SPOILERS proceed at your own risk:




I don't think that Solaris is a mindless force because it's not just replaying a situation...it's reconstructing an entire fascimile of a human from another person's memory which can actively interact with the person.

The simulacrum has all the memories and the emotional patterns of the human it imitates, it thinks and feels like the human it imitates but...VERY IMPORTANTLY...is self-aware. Aware of itself being a simulacrum and having feelings about that...which lead to the suicide attempt it makes (useless of course but its actions are governed by its human form)

I see Solaris as a divine force, something like a minor God with a sphere of influence, possibly though not necessarily a predatory one.

But what matters in the end is not Solaris, which is again relegated to the background, but Kelvin, who knows that what he is going into is an illusion, but chooses to go into it, because he prefers it to a reality that of loneliness and despair. This is a brilliant anti-heroic way to end the story.

Foxbat, as I see it, this is an Sf film in the same vein that PK Dick's books are SF books...they are eventually about the human condition.

[Foxbat]

they are eventually about the human condition.

Very true. What I meant was that the setting itself was incidental.

it thinks and feels like the human it imitates but...VERY IMPORTANTLY...is self-aware. Aware of itself being a simulacrum and having feelings about that...

Yes. This is a very important part. But it is also worth noting that the simulacrum are not immediately aware that they are constructs - also, at one point Kelvin's wife disputes the fact that she actually has to be a slave to the tendancies imposed upon her by Kelvin's memories. This leads to an important question in itself given that level of independance - Does Kelvin have the right to deny them existance?

For me, Solaris is like a painter's palette and Kelvin's subconscious chooses which colours to spread on the canvas - and in that sense, I see Solaris as a force rather than an entity.

[Foxbat]

A point that occurred to me concerning the ending: my take on it is that the ship has been destroyed by the expansion and what we are seeing is the final construct of Kelvin's subconscious. If this is the case, then every thing looks fine on the surface, but the viewer has no indication that anything outside this final scene actually exists for the constructs. If this is the case, are the two lovers meant to act out an existance in this fashion ad-infinitum? In other words, less the act of intelligence, more the result of a force acting upon the Kelvin's final thoughts.

Yes. I definitely need to watch this one again

[ravenus]

I didn't get the last point you made. Are you saying that what we see happens to Kelvin is not necessarily what happens to him? Are you saying that he does not actually make a choice?

[Foxbat]

I think that it was not a conscious choice. One minute the station is being engulfed and the next he is back in his apartment (which is obviously a construct). The real question is could he survive the station being swallowed (almost like an Ameoba)? Is the Kelvin in the final scene really him or a construct made from his last subconscious moments of life?

At least, I think that's what I mean

[ravenus]

For what purpose? Consider here that the simulacrums never were earlier in an environment other than the ship. A mindless force would have never bothered to make itself believable to the crewmen in their environment. Their illusions would have been haywire all over the place if just randomly grabbed from their memories.

I believe that Kelvin chooses the illusion which then envelops him wholly. What happens to him in reality is not a concern, because he is lost to reality; that is the power of Solaris.

How about if you relate it to a vampire that can make all manner if illusion but cannot enter your house (in this case mind) unless you invite him to?

[Foxbat]

I believe that Kelvin chooses the illusion which then envelops him wholly. What happens to him in reality is not a concern, because he is lost to reality; that is the power of Solaris.

You may well be correct - but that does not indicate to me any kind of intelligence behind Solaris - merely a power which Kelvin(unwittingly/unconsciously) harnesses. It may not be an entity that makes itself believable to the occupants, but it might be their minds interpreting a power in the same way that Morbius's Monster From The id came from himself in Forbidden Planet.

I like the vampire analogy

[stencyl]

I'm bumping this discussion late. I hope that is okay.

I thought that this was a great film. I agree that it was not and action-packed sci-fi flick, but I think that the way that it works as a meditation on the Human Condition (as was earlier pointed out) is essential how it works as sci-fi. Lem's novel makes a point of illustrating the way that mankind carries that "humanity" into the unknown (i.e. space) as a sort of security blanket and a reference point for understanding through science as Solaris Studies fill volume after volume. He wants to explore what happens once that security is called into question.

The film picks up on a few of the themes of the book as they relate to the concept of humanity. It scrutinizes what it is to be a person, what a weighty role emotions play on our concept of reality, what reality itself is, what the limit of science is, etc.

I like the way the film works as a meditation on guilt and love--how that can drive our character to what essentially amounts to suicide. There's a nice irony in the fact that he is the shrink.

I also think that the end of the film is intentionally open to interpretation. The implication is that our character elects for the unreal world over the real. He dies for a Hollywoodized love, maybe. But the monologue the Clooney delivers (taken from the novel) near the end makes it even more interesting. He talks about his "real" life back on earth as a chain of rehearsed moments if I remember right, essentially an act.

The film deals with Calvin's life back home and his life with the impossible return of his wife on equal footing. We are to belive that both are true throughout the movie. In fact, an impossible "story-book" version of reality wins out, with Calvin's wife reincarnated and the two living happily-ever-after in their apartment, even if it means that we are to believe that Calvin gives up his life for it in the expansion of the planet Solaris.

I don't think that it matters much whether Solaris is sentient or destructive or anything else. I think that it is part of the point of the film and the book to leave Solaris a mystery. This is not sci-fi about novelties and gadgets and destructive or friendly aliens. It uses the unknown as a device to examine humanity and in this case its slippery and many layered version of reality.

[Foxbat]

I'm bumping this discussion late. I hope that is okay.

Bump away

I think the fact that we all have slightly differing views is another point in this movie's favour - it certainly makes you think.

Your comments also make me realise that it really is time I got around to reading the book