URSS

Solaris

CREDITS

1972, B/N,  35mm, 165’ (in Italia 115’)

Regia: Andrej Tarkovskij
Sceneggiatura: Andrej Tarkovskij, Fridrik Gorenstejn
Fotografia: (Sovcolor, Scope): Vadim Jusov
Montaggio: Andrej Tarkovskij
Musica: Eduard Artem’ev (e il preludio corale di Johann Sebastian Bach)
Scenografia: Michail Romadin
Costumi: Nelly Fomina
Interpreti: Donatas Banjonis (Kris Kelvin), Natalja Bondarcuk (Hari), Jurij Jarvet (Snaut), Anatolij Solonicyn (Sartorius), Vladislav Dvorzeckij (Burton), Nikolaj Grin’ko (Il Padre), Sos Sarkisjan (Gibarian)
Produzione:Mosfilm
Direttore di Produzione: Viaĉeslav Tarassov
Distribuzione: Lab 80 Film

SINOSSI

Psychologist Kris Kelvin is in charge of a mission on the orbiting station around the planet Solaris. Before leaving, he spends the last day on Earth at his father’s to whom he confides his doubts on the mission. When he gets to the base, Kelvin hears that the chief of the mission, Gibarjan has killed himself, leaving him a video message in order to explain the dangers he is coming across. Strange phenomena have recently taken place on the space station. On the planet Solaris it seems to exist a thinking ocean, issuing radiation able to materialize men’s memories and obsessions: both Gibarjan and the other two members of the spacecrew, Sartorious and Snaut, have been affected. Soon Kelvin is visited by the materialization of his wife, who had committed suicide 10 years before. Shocked by the apparition, Kelvin tries to get rid of her, putting her on a rocket and sending it to space. But the woman materializes again and this time Kelvin abandons to love. Thanks to Kelvin’s feelings and attentions Hary becomes more and more human. This time the woman feels an obstacle to the success of the mission, and tries to kill herself, by drinking liquid oxygen. When Kelvin wakes up, he hears by Snaut that all the guests created by Solaris have disappeared, and Hary has asked to be annihilated. Now Kelvin is on the Earth, at his father’s house where he had spent the last day before leaving, but a movement of the cine-camera slowly shows that the rainy country house is placed on a isle that has originated in the meantime on the ocean of Solaris.

NOTE CRITICHE

Taken from a novel by Stanislaw Lem, and adapted by the director together with Fridrich Goreŝtejn, the film was advertised as the Soviet answer to 2001 Space Odyssey, but the two films could not be more different. For Tarkovskij as well science fiction is a pretext for philosophical reflections, but he is much more concerned with the unknown  inside of us than with the mystery of the universe. The director’s lyric style, that is diluted in the duration of the film but concentrated in its meaning, has found a unique balance and charm.(Mereghetti)