Andrei Tarkovsky’s ‘Solaris’ is one of the few non-American classics to receive an American interpretation. Steven Soderbergh, who directed his own ‘Solaris,’ didn’t treat it as an English-language adaptation of the Soviet film. Instead, he decided to keep his script ‘closer in spirit’ to Stanisław Lem’s eponymous book, which also serves as the source material for Tarkovsky’s film. Soderbergh brought George Clooney in the central role of a psychologist going on a space mission and grappling with his mournful past. Yet, the Russian film, which was released nearly three decades before it, stands the test of time far better than it does.
The credit goes to Tarkovsky’s cinematic style, which relies more on the protagonist’s interiority than on genre elements to leave an impact. He doesn’t dwell much on the sci-fi conflict, choosing instead to focus on the characters’ emotional reality. So, his approach feels similar to the tragedy of its brooding protagonist. Kris Kelvin (Donatas Banionis), the psychologist, who travels to the space station to investigate an anomaly, gets lost in his own qualms. In the process, he forgoes his core investigation, as the oceanic planet reminds him of his painful past. It reunites him with his late wife, Hari (Natalya Bondarchuk), through an illusion, forcing him to evaluate the very nature of his reality.
The purpose of Kelvin’s mission was to investigate such hallucinations and to evaluate whether the research should be allowed to continue. His profession makes him a suitable candidate for this job, but once he sets foot on that planet, everything he knows to be the truth seemingly goes for a toss. Hari’s elusive presence allows him a window to a comforting lie and an emotional truth. Tarkovsky’s script uses Kelvin’s dilemma to explore how we make sense of our reality. Kelvin oscillates between his contrasting perceptions, much like the other crewmen, Dr. Snaut (Jüri Järvet) and Dr. Sartorius (Anatoly Solonitsyn).
As noted earlier, Tarkovsky doesn’t dwell on the sci-fi aspects of the planet, choosing instead not to make them the film’s central focus. Instead, he uses them to interpret our painful relationship with loss and memories, leaning heavily on the psychological aspects to hold our attention through Kelvin’s painful struggle. That’s why it excels as a devastating exploration of universal themes such as grief (among others), anchored by Vadim Yusov’s stunning cinematography.
Yusov’s frames create a stunning contrast between the Earth and Solaris, painting the frames from the former world through its soft-edged, foggy, and comforting beauty, while imbuing the latter with stark, mechanical coldness. The station only seems to hold any warmth when the couple comes together—when they share an embrace or start to see the beauty in their second chance at coexistence, often framed in a soft glow of light, before facing the reality of their inevitable fate. That’s why the film becomes a melancholic tale, with occasional intellectual discourse and surreal detours that convey the layers of Kelvin and Hari’s tragedy.
Overall, it’s a gorgeously lit film with the kind of haunting, unforgettable frames that become the foundation of the director’s later work in ‘Mirror (1975),’ ‘Stalker (1979),’ and ‘Nostalghia (1983),’ backed by delicate camera movements and a pensive score. Tarkovsky explores the soul-crushing intensity of the characters’ emotions, conveyed beautifully in Banionis and Bondarchuk’s performances, who express the depths of their despair as neatly as the beauty of their fleeting time together. They make the film remarkably evocative, even if it feels thematically underwhelming compared to the rest of Tarkovsky’s work. Although it’s far from being shallow, it’s not as dense thematically as ‘Stalker’ while probing into the search for the meaning of life.
Yet, it is steeped in the beauty of all kinds, filled with recurring motifs and dramatic camera movements, leaving its moments etched in our minds. Through them, it interrogates the cycle of life and human consciousness, while connecting the future with our past through art. Tarkovsky introduces an array of paintings in the space station, contrasting artificiality with striking depictions of life on Earth. So, there’s more to admire on its artistic front, whether it’s the way the editing connects different parts of Kelvin’s emotional reality or the production design accentuates it. It all plays a part in making it a contemplative piece of cinema that keeps pulling us back to it.
Solaris movie links: IMDB, Letterboxd, wikipedia
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