Cinema Review: Solaris at BFI, Southbank

Directed by Andrey Tarkovskiy
Reviewed by Inshra Russell


Based on the book by Polish writer Stanislaw Lem, Solaris is a Russian science fiction epic told through the eyes of Kris Kelvin (Donatas Banionis), a psychologist who is sent to investigate the mysterious behaviour of the scientists on the space station based above the ocean planet Solaris, believed to posses intelligence. After spending some time on the station, widower Kelvin discovers that the Solaris Ocean does indeed have the ability to materialize memories into pseudo-reality, when his wife Hari (Natalya Bondarchuk) who had committed suicide ten years ago comes into being, arising questions in Kelvin of whether this mysterious intelligence is a curse or a blessing. This creature, in the body of his beloved wife begins to mean more to Kelvin then his true wife and as time passed Hari turns more human, only to realise that she is not. It is a very human-like love for Kelvin that ultimately drives her to destroy herself for the sake of his wellbeing.

The theme of love is what champions in this film over the loneliness that ensues from space science. Solaris is a comment on the importance of mankind needing each other rather than being an advocate of investigating extra terrestrial life.
Scenes of water and liquid are also evidently playing a role to articulate the life that it provides on earth as opposed to the insanity that the scientists were being driven to stationed on an ocean of liquid intelligence that plays into their subconscious memories of love.


Over 2 and half hours long, Solaris is slow to get into the action and once there, lingers a little too long on most everything. A film that writer Lem wanted to disown the rights to and director Tarkovskiy expressed as his least favourite, Solaris, which is part of the BFI’s collection of Soviet Space Odysseys had the audience, a full house, sitting dead still throughout and not making a peep even when the credits finally rolled in the end. Banionis’s expressions remained somewhat exactly the same throughout and Bodarchuk’s desperate and suicidal love for Kelvin fails to provide any strength as the one of two female speaking roles in the film. The only time anyone made a sound was when a dwarf (who we never see again) attempted to escape Dr. Sartorius’s (Anatoli Solonitsyn) chamber as Kelvin questioned him of the plausibility of Solaris. It was a chuckle from a few members of the audience and the only attempt at laughter for what felt like mistaken comic relief. Overall, Tarkovskiy’s Solaris is a gripping and entertaining story told at a crawling pace, its deeper meaning of human truthfulness emphasised in the mise-en-scène, if you’re lucky enough to be awake to notice it.

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