“Solaris”
2002, directed by Steven Soderbergh
Though mostly dismissed as pretentious and dreadfully boring upon its initial release, “Solaris” has been a source of endless fascination for me. Although I intend to share my fully developed analysis in a forthcoming essay, I’ll give a short version here. “Solaris” might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but I think it’s probably the deepest and most important work of science fiction filmmaking in this past decade. I’ll agree with critics that it is at times unbearably slow in pacing, and because of this its 90 minute running time can often seem something more like three hours. But the performances (especially by star George Clooney) are achingly honest in their simplicity, the effects are gorgeous, and the film itself represents a complete fusion of spiritual and science fiction thematic materials, something toyed with before but never achieved to this extent. “Solaris” is an unsung cinematic landmark, and the most deeply spiritual film I have ever seen put out of Hollywood. If one can look past the overly placid surface, there is much to be discussed and admired here.
Clooney plays Chris Kelvin, a psychologist and widower whose beloved but unstable wife, Rheya, committed suicide when he berated her for aborting their unborn child against his wishes. His researcher friend Gibarian studies the mysterious planet Solaris from its orbit, and when the space station suddenly stops communicating with Earth, Chris is sent to find out what happened and bring the troubled scientists home. Upon his arrival, he finds Gibarian dead and the rest of the crew plagued by “visitors,” or replicas of past friends, mentors, and family members that are apparently created by the planet.
Kelvin is a scientist through and through, a man of logic rather than action. Solaris represents a certainty that his mind rebels against: God, or at the very least the fact that there are things in the universe that cannot be explained or proven by any process. When he wakes up one morning to find Rheya lying next to him and completely, innocently unaware of her demise, his first reaction is to blow her out of an airlock. But gradually, as he accepts the reality of her existence, Rheya becomes the screen onto which he projects his own “sins” of unbelief and guilt over her death. When these things drive her to commit suicide yet again, it is her eerie and miraculous resurrection that allows Kelvin to embrace the mystery of Solaris and the inadequacy of his mind to cope with its existence.
Sound familiar? It should. The interpretation of Rheya as Christ figure is probably by no means the intended reading of the film. But nevertheless, the plot seems to support the idea, and “Solaris” certainly endorses the idea of man’s ultimate smallness in terms of the universe. It’s a film that attempts to conform to pantheistic ideals, but instead contradicts itself by suggesting very Christian theological concepts. This incongruity makes it a mesmerizing case study, and I believe a very good conversation starter.
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