Revisiting the Legendary ‘Solaris’
Fifty years have passed since Andrei Tarkovsky’s 1972 film adaptation of Stanisław Lem’s 'Solaris'. Both the psychological science fiction movie and the novel enchanted audiences, who were fascinated with outer space: Lem published 'Solaris' eight years before Neil Armstrong became the first man to set foot on the moon, while Tarkovsky’s film adaptation came out three years after Armstrong made one giant leap for mankind.
Re-Evaluating the Past
In the novel and in Tarkovsky’s adaptation, Dr. Kris Kelvin arrives at the space station to help his colleagues Gibarian, Sartorius, and Snaut discover what lies inside the ocean planet Solaris. Unfortunately, he makes a gruesome discovery: Gibarian has committed suicide. After investigating, he learns that Gibarian, Sartorius, and Snaut decided to bombard Solaris with X-rays. They carried out their unauthorized operation after they failed at contacting Solaris.
The sinful past of Gibarian and his colleagues come to light. They start receiving 'visitors’ who are realistic versions of people they’ve hurt. Gibarian was the first to receive a visitor. He wanted to hide his shameful past from the others, so he stayed locked away with his guest in his room. Gibarian’s suicide was his act of escaping his past, but his visitor remains, and Kris sees Gibarian’s visitor after his death. In this visual, Lem shows that people can never escape their struggles.
Because the space station was affected by the X-rays, Kris also receives a visitor: his wife, Harey, who committed suicide after he left her. Kris plans to haphazardly discard Harey as though she had never existed. He puts Harey into a rocket and launches her into space. But the rocket can’t hold the heavy trauma that exists between Kris and Harey. Another Harey later appears in the space station; this one has no knowledge of Kris launching her into space.
Trauma
In Solaris, Stanisław Lem exposes the persistence of trauma. Harey’s trauma is frozen in time. In Lem’s novel, ten years have passed since she died. Yet she looks identical to when Kris last saw her alive. Her physical appearance, unlike her memory, remains. Harey’s trauma causes her to have no recollection of how she appeared in front of her husband. Nor does she have any recollection of how she died. She is at the mercy of Kris, and in Lem’s novel, Kris tells Harey that she died from an unspecified illness.
Harey, traumatized, cannot move on physically or emotionally from Kris. When Kris leaves Harey alone in his room, she suffers injuries after she physically broke through the unlocked door to find him. Harey does not know how to open the door. This self-inflicted pain represents her warped conscience, as Harey feels that she is responsible for Kris not loving her anymore.
Before his journey to Solaris, Kris chose distance and did not take Harey’s threat of suicide seriously when he decided to leave her. By the time he confronted his conscience, his wife was already dead. History repeats itself when the Solaris version of Harey attempts suicide. Haray knows that she could never live up to the Harey to whom Kris was married on earth. Harey attempts suicide but fails, making it seem that she is immortal in space. Kris then has an epiphany and wants to start a relationship with the Solaris version of Harey. This was how Kris would absolve his guilt: he would fully acknowledge Harey herself, but not her trauma.
Closing the Past
Kris wants to start a relationship with the Solaris version of Harey, but Harey knows that is impossible, as his wife is only Kris’ consciousness brought to life. She decides to bid farewell to Solaris. Harey goes behind Kris’ back and gets Snaut and Sartorius to annihilate her. The two men’s machine makes Harey vanish instantly. Kris finally gets the unwanted closure which he desperately needed.
Homecoming
Kris realized that his true home was in space. In Lem’s novel, Kris believed he would drown in the ocean of people on earth. Kris caught his breath by studying Solaris. He finally had his hypothesis that Solaris was a type of God. He did not know what type of God it was or what would happen next. His profound discovery was that mankind did not have all the answers. Kris would move on, not allowing himself to be overcome by self-conceit like his colleagues Snaut and Sartorius.
Tackling the Current
In Andrei Tarkovsky’s Solaris Kris has further contact with Solaris than that which takes place in Lem’s novel. In the beginning of Solaris Kris is shown to be distant from his father. This distance is not resolved before Kris leaves Earth for his space mission. At the end of the film, Kris’ father reappears. He reappears when Kris looks out at Solaris from inside the space station.
Solaris transmits Kris and his father. They are in the same place as the beginning of the film, Kris’ family’s house. This is the ocean planet’s way to convince Kris to mend the current. Kris couldn’t continue his relationship with his dead wife. But he can fix his relationship with his living father. His father’s reappearance is a form of therapy for Kris. He will know how to mend their relationship once they actually reunite on earth.
The end of Andrei Tarkovsky’s Solaris displays the novel’s message on religion. At the start of the movie, Kris, Gibarian, Sartorius, and Snaut are baptized by the ocean planet when their visitors enter the space station. At the end of the movie, Solaris transmits his father in front of Kris. Kris drops to his knees and begs his father for forgiveness. His father embraces him. Tarkovsky’s film ends on a cliffhanger, as Kris’s penance is not revealed, but his desire for forgiveness has begun. The film ends by showing that Kris’s family’s house is located on Solaris.
Tarkovsky reinforces Solaris’s theme of dealing with problems close to home. Despite technological innovation and the exploration of outer space, humanity’s persistent failures in ethics, its weaknesses, its inequities and challenges will not suddenly vanish with a move to another planet. They will continue to reappear, like Kris’ wife Harey and the visitors to the planet of Solaris.
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