SOLARIS Series: From Tsars To Stars: A Journey Through Russian Fantastik Cinema October 22, 2006

SOLARIS (SOLYARIS) 1972, 165 min. Dir. Andrei Tarkovsky. Scientist Chris Kelvin (Donatas Banionis) is sent to a space station whose inhabitants have been performing a series of experiments in an attempt to make contact with the strange planet known as Solaris. When he arrives, he believes that most of the crew has gone mad, until he’s visited by an apparition: his former lover Hari (Natalia Bondarchuk), who had committed suicide long ago. Thus he learns the secret of Solaris and its ocean, which creates "copies" of real people, "simulacra made not of ordinary matter but of neutrinos which are modelled by the thinking ocean out of the human subconscious. They are a physical embodiment of all the temptations, desires and suppressed guilt that torment the human mind" (Maya Turovskaya). Recently remade by Steven Soderbergh with George Clooney as Kelvin, this original version of SOLARIS was judged harshly by its own creator. But then Tarkovsky judged every film he ever made harshly. This may be the most emotionally devastating science fiction film ever made. Based on the novel by the great Stanislaw Lem, who died this March at the age of 84 and to whom we pay tribute with these screenings.

Official Website: http://egyptiantheatre.com/archive1999/2006/RussianFantastik.htm