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Watched Tarkovsky's Solaris last night.

Posted by sjb (A) on March 5, 2007 at 08:10:24

It was late and I was a little tired but for some reason it felt like the right time to pop it in (it's been sitting here for weeks, destroying the value of my netflix account).
It took about 5 minutes for me to be all in. The look, feeel and sound, the overall atmosphere, was immediately compelling. And when it ended at close to 1AM I still felt that way... and more.

The movie is a meditation and I could see where it would be a grind if one wasn't drawn to meditative things or wasn't in the right frame of mind when watching it.

I'm a fan of the remake and would probably still enjoy it but it doesn't have nearly the depth of the original (and it's very Americanized with it's brand of happpily ever after).

Anyway, not much to say about individual scenes except that when Kelvin is being tended to by Khari and wakes to find her gone, through to the end of the film, the portrayal of a man who at the same time is feeling the impact of having been emotionally brutalized (not by her, just by all of it) and realizing a kind of hope he's never known is simply and powerfully brilliant (simply refers to the presentation not the depth or complexity of what's being expressed).

Also, since it was mentioned recently, a quick thought about the freeway scene. I didn't see it as filler or, specifically, as a comment on industrialzed life. I felt it was a metaphor for the emotional/psychological damage done to Burton by his experience (but more by the offical reaction to it). The tunnels, the sound, the angles, etc. felt like riding through the catacombs of his psyche and/or mind and/or emotional state and were also giving us a touch of the feeling of both monotony and the confusion that returning from Solaris could engender. That probably sounds like I was thinking about it a lot but I wasn't. I was just experiencing it and am trying to put words to it after the fact (that goes for everything I'm writing here).

All in all a beautiful and profoundly human film that is now among my all time favorites.

Don't piss on my shoe and tell me it's raining.

This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:

The Cable Cooker

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