OFF: Misc. ranting...

[Nick Medford]

On Wed, 22 Sep 2004 17:39:09 +0200, Henderson Keith
<keith.henderson at PSI.CH> wrote:

>Solaris intrigues me though...don't really know much
>about this movie (the original I mean, not the George Clooney remake, which
>I haven't seen either), and I can only find a version with German subtitles
>(or overdubs, can't remember), since it was done in Russia(n).  Is it worth
>searching out for next time I'm in the UK?

Solaris was made by Andrei Tarkovsky, a truly great director IMHO, but I
wouldn't say it was one of his best films. If you've never seen a Tarkovsky
film, it's worth knowing that they tend to be a) very long and b) very
slow. At best they are like celluloid meditations, at worst they lapse into
serious tedium. Solaris has a particularly celebrated/notorious sequence,
early on in the movie, where the central character is driving through a
system of road tunnels (we're still on Earth at this point) and there is
something like ten uninterrupted minutes of tracking shots of the tunnel
walls flashing past. This actually looks great, but certainly goes on for
long enough to make viewers a little restless. However there are people who
rate Solaris as one of the greatest films ever made. Its reputation was
probably hurt somewhat by being tagged as the "Soviet answer to 2001" by
some sections of the press, and the two were compared in a sort of head-to-
head way in some reviews at the time. I haven't seen the Cloonified remake,
but I imagine it would be much more in keeping with the conventions of big
budget cinema.

Tarkovsky made another film, "Stalker", which could loosely be described as
sci-fi, and I much prefer that to Solaris. It has a total cast of about
four people IIRC, and features a long journey through a mysterious "zone"
in the wake of some kind of catastrophe. The deeper themes are quite
similar to Solaris, in that travel through a strange realm or space becomes
a metaphor for the acquisition of self-knowledge.

My favourite Tarkovsky film (though I haven't seen them all) is probably
either "Stalker" or "The Sacrifice". This last deals with a magical act of
sacrifice by a Russian academic (who thus averts a global disaster... don't
ask me to explain, words cannot really do justice to the power of the
imagery). This, of all his films, is really the one where the
extraordinarily long tracking shots achieve a kind of mesmeric beauty. It
also features haunting choral music by Bach which suits the mood of the
film perfectly.

So, yes, I'd recommend Solaris, although I'd recommend the others I mention
more highly, but you'd be best advised not to see *any* of these films on a
day when you're not in the mood for something looong and slooow.

Nick