Solaris [Criterion Collection]

Director: Andrey Tarkovskiy, Andrei Tarkovsky Andrey Tarkovskiy

Overview

Based on a novel by Stanislaw Lem, Solaris centers on widowed psychologist Kris Kelvin (Donata Banionis), who is sent to a space station orbiting a water-dominated planet called Solaris to investigate the mysterious death of a doctor, as well as the mental problems plaguing the dwindling number of cosmonauts on the station. Finding the remaining crew to be behaving oddly and aloof, Kelvin is more than surprised when he meets his seven-years-dead wife Khari (Natalya Bondarchuk) on the station. It quickly becomes apparent that Solaris possesses something that brings out repressed memories and obsessions within the cosmonauts on the space station, leaving Kelvin to question his perception of reality. Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the 1972 Cannes Film Festival, Solaris was remade by Steven Soderbergh in 2002.

Product Details

Release Date:	05/24/2011
UPC:	0715515083614
Original Release:	1972
Rating:	PG
Source:	Criterion Collection
Region Code:	1
Presentation:	[Wide Screen]
Sound:	[Dolby Digital Mono]
Language:	English
Time:	2:46:00
Sales rank:	739

Special Features

Disc 1; Audio Commentary by Andrei Tarkovsky Scholars Vida Johnson and Graham Petrie; ; Disc Two; ; Nine Deleted and Alternate Scenes; Video Interviews with Actress Natalya Bondarchuk, Cinematographer Vadim Yusov, Art Director Mikhail Romadin, and Composer Eduard Artemyev; ; Excerpt from a Documentary about Stanislaw Lem, the Author of the Film's source novel; ; Plus: a Booklet featuring an Essay by Critic Phillip Lopate and an Appreciation by Director Akira Kurosawa

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Donatas Banionis	Kris Kelvin
Natalya Bondarchuk	Hari
Vladislav Dvorjetzki	Henri Berton
Nikolai Grinko	Kelvin's Father
Sos Sarkisyan	Dr. Gibarian
Olga Barnet	matka Krisa Kelvina
Tamara Ogorodnikowa	Anna, ciotka Krisa
Juri Jarvet	Dr. Snaut,Actor
Anatoliy Solonitsyn	Sartorius,Actor
Vladislav Dvorzhetsky	Burton
Tamara Ogorodnikova	Aunt Anna
Sos Sarkissian	Actor
Eduard Artemev	Composer
Edward Artemyev	Composer

Technical Credits

Andrey Tarkovskiy

Friedrich Gorenstein

Andrei Tarkovsky

Fridrikh Gorenshtein

Andrey Tarkovskiy	Director,Screenwriter
Friedrich Gorenstein	Screenwriter
Andrei Tarkovsky	Director,Screenwriter
Fridrikh Gorenshtein	Screenwriter

Scene Index

Disc #1 -- Solaris: The Film
1. Opening Credits [3:09]
2. Part One [8:14]
3. Berton's Interrogation [6:31]
4. A Floating Object [3:05]
5. The Scientists' Debate [5:13]
6. Family Relations [2:23]
7. The Truth [4:48]
8. City of the Future [4:54]
9. Bonfire [4:48]
10. Liftoff [2:26]
11. Solaris [6:08]
12. Gibarian's Message [5:47]
13. Sartorius [6:52]
14. Snaut [7:36]
15. Kris's Visitor [7:15]
16. Part Two [2:57]
17. Contact [4:56]
18. Hari II [:00]
19. "The Door Opens the Other Way" [3:40]
20. Sartorius's Laboratory [3:53]
21. Home Movie [4:16]
22. An Encephalogram [5:27]
23. Hari's Story [5:11]
24. The Library [5:39]
25. The Hunters in the Snow [12:55]
26. Thirty Seconds of Weightlessness [3:33]
27. Liquid Oxygen [2:26]
28. "I'm Afraid" [7:22]
29. Kris's Wounds [5:32]
30. Letter from Hari [6:13]
31. The Meaning of Life [3:37]
32. The House [3:49]
1. Tarkovsky's Collaborators [3:09]
2. Donatas Banionis [8:14]
3. The Soviet Film Bureaucracy [6:31]
4. The Issue of Special Effects [3:05]
5. Narrative Consistency [5:13]
6. Tarkovsky and His Parents [2:23]
7. Moral Knowledge [4:48]
8. Russian and Western Audiences [4:54]
9. Clues [4:48]
10. Stanislaw Lem's Novel [2:26]
11. Yuri Yarvet [6:08]
12. The Sets: Kris's and Gibarian's Rooms [5:47]
13. Sculpted Time [6:52]
14. Sos Sarkisian [7:36]
15. Elliptical Shorthand [7:15]
16. Kris's Reasons [2:57]
17. How Could Hari Know? [4:56]
18. "Islands of Memory" [:00]
19. The Ocean's Motives [3:40]
20. Hari's Humanity [3:53]
21. A Dysfunctional Family [4:16]
22. Color and Texture [5:27]
23. Natalya Bondarchuk [5:11]
24. Western Culture [5:39]
25. Bach and Breughel [12:55]
26. Levitation as Motif [3:33]
27. Hari's Writing [2:26]
28. Solaris as Science Fiction [7:22]
29. Ambiguity [5:32]
30. Film Stocks [6:13]
31. Big Issues [3:37]
32. Questions and Possible Answers [3:49]

Menu

Disc #1 -- Solaris: The Film
   Play The Movie
   Chapters
      Color Bars
   Commentary
      Commentary: On/Off
      Index
         Color Bars
   Subtitles
      Subtitles: On
      Subtitles: Off
Disc #2 -- Solaris: The Supplements
   Deleted And Alternate Scenes
      Index
         Opening Text
         Berton's Flight
         Kris's Takeoff from Earth
         Something to Eat
         Beginning of Part Two
         Kris and Hari's Meal
         Kris's Delirium/The Mirror Room
         Mother
         Further Philosophy
   Natalya Bondarchuk
      Play
   Vadim Yusov
      Play
   Mikhail Romadin
      Play
   Eduard Artemyev
      Play
   Stanislaw Lem
      Play
   Subtitles
      Subtitles: On
      Subtitles: Off

Editorial Reviews

The great Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky is the guide on a sci-fi journey into the psyche in Solaris, a profoundly spiritual adaptation of a novel by seminal science fiction author Stanislaw Lem. The story of a psychologist (Donatas Banionis) who's sent to a space station above the planet Solaris to investigate reports of bizarre phenomena, Solaris strays far from the standard sci-fi template, using minimal special effects and eschewing technical jargon. Instead, the film revolves around a strange encounter with the mysterious power of Solaris' ocean, which manifests itself upon the psychologist's arrival as a loved one from his past -- perhaps hallucination, perhaps not. But scientific explanations are beside the point; what matters to Tarkovsky are the emotional and spiritual ramifications of a "Contact" that ultimately has the same sort of archetypal resonance as the monolith in Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (a film to which Solaris is often compared). As one would expect from Tarkovsky, the texture of Solaris is exquisite, with brilliant cinematography, a haunting, ghostlike score from Eduard Artemyev, and Bach organ music underlying some truly eloquent metaphysical musings. In the end, Solaris is a masterpiece that espouses a search for truth beyond science and a meditation on our fear of the unknown.

Barnes & Noble - Gregory Baird

Conceived partly as the anti-2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), Andrei Tarkovsky's Solaris (1972) weaves a hypnotic fable about love, humanity, and memory out of its science fiction premise. Reinstating the detritus of everyday existence absent from 2001's future vision, Tarkovsky's tracking shots and long takes reveal the space station's claustrophobia and decay; the beautiful early images of nature further underline the ugly, dehumanizing effects of technology. Shifts between color and black-and-white, an enticingly old-fashioned space station library, and the evocatively ambiguous ending interweave past and present, as pragmatist Kelvin's re-acquaintance with his dead wife, Khari, suggests the dramatic stakes of trying to erase the past . Regardless of the political message that could be inferred regarding the Soviet bureaucracy, Solaris was the rare Tarkovsky film that avoided extensive mandated edits and received a relatively normal U.S.S.R. release; it was, however, cut by 35 minutes by the American distributor in 1976. Restored to its original length in 1990, Solaris has garnered more and more fans for its cerebral yet rapturous inquiry into what it means to be human.

All Movie Guide - Lucia Bozzola