Solaris- A review

I like Stanislaw Lem.

I like George Clooney and Natasha McElhone.

No wonder I'm a big fan of the movie Solaris.

Released in November 2002, Solaris was a remake of the 1972 Soviet version. Both of the movies were based on the 1961 science fiction novel by the Polish author Stanislaw Lem. The 1972 version was directed by Andrei Tarkovsky and the 2002version by Steven Soderbergh.

Solaris is in essence a psychological drama in space. It examines the topics of human desire and love and hate. The eternal human quest of wish fulfillment and the price that we pay for it.

George Clooney stars as the psychologist Chris Kelvin. Kelvin is haunted by the recent loss of his wife, Rheya, played by Natasha McElhone. He feels entirely detached from his everyday life and is unable to empathize with his patients.

His friend Gibarian, who is a scientist on board the space station surrounding the planet Solaris, sends him a cryptic message, asking him to travel to the station. Apparently there had been some trouble within and he did not want to elaborate because he did not want anyone else to eavesdrop.

The corporation which owns the space station dispatches Kelvin to check what really has been happening out there. Kelvin arrives to find Gibarian dead and the rest of the crew either dead or disappeared, except Dr Gordon and Snow.

Kelvin is surprised to catch glimpses of a little boy, ostensibly Gibarian's son, running around the space station. The first night, he dreams of Rheya and how they met. When he wakes up, to his horror he discovers Rheya in front of him, alive. Apparently, in the proximity of Solaris, one can dream a person into existence. Such is the curious nature of the alien life on the planet that it can invade the psychological barriers of the human mind and bring thoughts into reality.

Kelvin's first response is to trap the replica of Rheya into a space pod and release her into space. However, he begins to understand why Gordon and Snow are so jittery: apparently the crew members have had their loved ones make appearances as well. The little boy in question is the replica of Gibarian's son who had died on Earth.

His dreams continue to revolve around Rheya and lo and behold when he wakes up, there she is again, although quite unaware of the fate of her predecessor. She has her memories but she does not have the experience of living through them. To her, the life she had lead on earth was entirely abstract and very much the construction of kelvin's mind. She lacked a distinct personality and appeared to be an extension of Kelvin's experiences of his wife.

Kelvin becomes aware of the fact that Gordon had been involved in the deaths of the other replicas. She reveals the fact that the replicas approach her to ask for their deaths, since without their primary loved one their existence has become meaningless. Rheya, after discovering that Kelvin had killed her previous manifestation, asks Gordon to allow her to die.

Kelvin and Gordon stumbles onto the original body of Snow. Confronted with the evidence, the replica version of Snow admits to killing the original Snow, although according to him it was self defense. As Gordon began using her apparatus to kill the replicas, Solaris had reacted by drawing the space station closer so that they could not escape the gravitational field of the planet. Gordon and Kelvin decides that since the space station was beyond rescue, they must escape using a smaller escape ship.

Next we see Kelvin, he is back on Earth, going about the tedious routine of his life. One day he cuts himself, only find that the wound has healed automatically. Rheya appears to him again and he remembers that he did not get into the escape pod. He was in fact in Solaris. But was he himself or just a replica?

The psychological aspect of the drama is very intriguing as is the concept of dreams as explored in the movie. However, the main event of the movie is the downward spiral of love between Kelvin and Rheya. Do the Solaris manifestations of their earthly selves reflect the reality of their relationship? Or was their love on Earth doomed to begin with and the replicas reenactment of it a mere superficial construct?

Well, only you can answer that.