Andre Tarkovsky's Solyaris
Apr. 12th, 2008 10:16 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
zalenaWent out for Asian for Brother's Bday last night. He brought his friend Sadie, who I really like. They are not dating and I can't decide if this is a good thing or a bad thing. However, I did notice she had something wrong with her teeth. Which got me thinking about how unusual it is to see bad teeth in this part of the world. It's not that people don't have bad teeth, it's that they usually get it taken care of. One of the surest indicators of poverty is bad teeth. The conditions of poverty can create bad teeth, but they can also prevent people from dealing with it. People's teeth can tell us a lot about the conditions of their lives.
Afterwards we subjected ourselves to Tarkovsky's Solaris, free at the Boulder Public Library. (which I will refer to as Solyaris from now on to differentiate it from the book and Steven Soderbergh's movie version.) It was a very long film. Much longer than the program indicated. And while I'm inclined to say it's one of those legendary ground-breaking films, I wasn't really in the mood for it last night.
I still like the book best, but this film was a much more ambitious work than the Soderbergh version, and oh-so-Russian. It is an excellent example of s/f with limited special effects. And what I ended up liking about the film best is the way it took ordinary things from our planet: algae on a lake, horses in a field, traffic patterns on a busy highway, and made them look utterly alien.
I also liked the Rheya/Hari bits in this film, so much better than Soderbergh (who really is a video artist, not a filmmaker, and it doesn't seem to matter what technique he's using everything is kind of flat like it would be on video: including the foley) and that sense of uncanny in the missing details, like the lack of fasteners on her dress. Creepy!
In fact, I never realized it before, but Solaris as a story really treads the line between horror and s/f and has a very good grasp not only on our desires not always being healthy; but on sublimity as being something beyond sanity.
Unfortunately, the film was so relentlessly gloomy and long that it was hard not to resist making shadow puppets in the last hour. Still, the ending is a killer. And I would put it right next to Space Odyssey: 2001 as a Great Film About Space. (Along with, laugh all you want, Barbarella, which in its own way is about the total incomprehensibility of space. Barbarella is the camp version of movies like 2001 or Solaris in which the universe is crawling with life, all male, all horny. But it nicely flips that male explorer bent on raping other worlds into a female, receptive, explorer who just wants to merge into the sensual experience of exploration.)
In fact, that's one of the things I found most moving about Solyaris... Snout gives a speech about how rare human life is ("There are only several billion of us!") in terms of the vast reaches of the universe. And if the human's are spooked and mystified by Solaris' attempts at simulating human life; its simulacra are equally uncomforatable with the experience of being human, suggesting that in its own way Solaris is having as difficult a time understanding humans as the humans are at understanding it.
But the overarching themes of human's desperate need for a mirror getting in the way of any true love or understanding, not to mention the artificial nature of any creative act... well it was very nicely dealt with.
If you are in the mood for Space Angst, this is about a Angsty as it gets. However, if you're going to approach just one version: I recommend the book.
In the meantime, I've been enjoying my own totally subjective version of the universe. The onslaught of words/ideas that has characterized the first quarter of the year has slowed, and it is a bit of a relief. I'm going to clean my house, putter in my garden, and go out and explore the world.
Afterwards we subjected ourselves to Tarkovsky's Solaris, free at the Boulder Public Library. (which I will refer to as Solyaris from now on to differentiate it from the book and Steven Soderbergh's movie version.) It was a very long film. Much longer than the program indicated. And while I'm inclined to say it's one of those legendary ground-breaking films, I wasn't really in the mood for it last night.
I still like the book best, but this film was a much more ambitious work than the Soderbergh version, and oh-so-Russian. It is an excellent example of s/f with limited special effects. And what I ended up liking about the film best is the way it took ordinary things from our planet: algae on a lake, horses in a field, traffic patterns on a busy highway, and made them look utterly alien.
I also liked the Rheya/Hari bits in this film, so much better than Soderbergh (who really is a video artist, not a filmmaker, and it doesn't seem to matter what technique he's using everything is kind of flat like it would be on video: including the foley) and that sense of uncanny in the missing details, like the lack of fasteners on her dress. Creepy!
In fact, I never realized it before, but Solaris as a story really treads the line between horror and s/f and has a very good grasp not only on our desires not always being healthy; but on sublimity as being something beyond sanity.
Unfortunately, the film was so relentlessly gloomy and long that it was hard not to resist making shadow puppets in the last hour. Still, the ending is a killer. And I would put it right next to Space Odyssey: 2001 as a Great Film About Space. (Along with, laugh all you want, Barbarella, which in its own way is about the total incomprehensibility of space. Barbarella is the camp version of movies like 2001 or Solaris in which the universe is crawling with life, all male, all horny. But it nicely flips that male explorer bent on raping other worlds into a female, receptive, explorer who just wants to merge into the sensual experience of exploration.)
In fact, that's one of the things I found most moving about Solyaris... Snout gives a speech about how rare human life is ("There are only several billion of us!") in terms of the vast reaches of the universe. And if the human's are spooked and mystified by Solaris' attempts at simulating human life; its simulacra are equally uncomforatable with the experience of being human, suggesting that in its own way Solaris is having as difficult a time understanding humans as the humans are at understanding it.
But the overarching themes of human's desperate need for a mirror getting in the way of any true love or understanding, not to mention the artificial nature of any creative act... well it was very nicely dealt with.
If you are in the mood for Space Angst, this is about a Angsty as it gets. However, if you're going to approach just one version: I recommend the book.
In the meantime, I've been enjoying my own totally subjective version of the universe. The onslaught of words/ideas that has characterized the first quarter of the year has slowed, and it is a bit of a relief. I'm going to clean my house, putter in my garden, and go out and explore the world.
