Solaris

1972's SOLARIS essentially poses the inquiry of whether or not we can really know someone.  Maybe we spent that finite time trying to create them in our own image.  The longevity of relationships may often be proportional to overlooking flaws, the things that may repel and disappoint us.  As time passes, the person we first met may have undergone a profound change, or never was who we thought they were.

Co-writer/director Andrei Tarkovsky adapts Stanislaw Lem's highly regarded novel of the same name with a focus on humanity, even if some of the characters involved are not human but rather compositions of neutrinos.  Perhaps created by the mysterious ocean waters of the planet Solaris.  Water plays a significant role in Tarkovsky films, all of which demand your full attention.  The later STALKER took this and many ideas introduced here somewhat further. I've read in fact that the director felt his exploration of ideas fell short in SOLARIS.

I disagree.  Even after my first viewing I was absorbing and pondering an overwhelming treatise on emotional connection.  All within the confines of a deteriorating space station, one with a history of pilots who were haunted by visions of "visitors".   By the time psychologist Kris Kelvin (Donatas Banionis) is sent to investigate the station, the crew has dwindled to two: Dr. Snaut (Juri Jarvet) and Dr. Sartorious (Anatoli Solonitsyn), both of whom are evasive and lost in some sort of mental fog.   They have their own "visitors" and "guests".  Kelvin can also see them.

Then Kelvin is visited by a woman who looks exactly like his late wife, Hari (Natalya Bondarchuk).  He is terrified and lures her into a rocket he launches into space.  But then she reappears later.  Surely she is a hallucination, like what said pilot Henri Berton (Vladislav Dvorzhetsky) had explained all those years ago of a giant child he had seen on Solaris' waters.  Snaut and Sartorious can see and converse with Hari, too.

The scientists explain what is happening, and I'll leave that for you to discover.  Also how Hari is at first entirely dependent on Kelvin, then later learns how to exist on her own. She learns about the Hari who had committed suicide, who was unloved by her husband.  And how Kelvin finally found that love for this woman who looks like Hari.

SOLARIS succeeds for me in its strong examination of how emotions can co-exist with philosophy and biology.  Neurology.  What exists independently or one's mind, and a reality that may be created by it.  The metaphysics were certainly more elucidated in Lem's pages, but this very deliberate, heady, and at times eerie work of art is simply stunning. At nearly three hours you have more than enough time to let it all wash through your (sub) consciousness.   I found it powerfully moving as well.  How the character of Hari (or her likeness) develops is heartbreaking, possibly mirroring that of her Earthbound counterpart.  Does Kelvin ever know her? Himself?