Solaris (1972)

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Movie
German title Solaris
Original title Солярис
Solaris logo 1972.svg
Country of production Soviet Union
original language Russian
Publishing year 1972
length 167 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Andrei Tarkovsky
script Andrei Tarkowski
Friedrich Gorenstein
production Vyacheslav Tarasov
music Eduard Artemjew
camera Vadim Yusov
cut Lyudmila Feiginova
Nina Marcus
occupation

Solaris (OT: Russian Солярис , transcribed Soljaris ) is a Soviet science fiction film by Andrei Tarkovsky from the year 1972 . It is based on the novel of the same name by the Polish author Stanisław Lem .

action

The psychologist Kris Kelvin is summoned to the planet Solaris, the study of which has been in crisis for a long time. Before leaving, Kelvin visits his parents. His father invited his friend Berton because Berton said the experiences he had during his previous mission on Solaris could be meaningful to Kelvin. During a flight he thought he could make out human figures on the surface of the planet covered by a huge ocean.

Kelvin travels to the space station that hovers over the planet. The station is in a chaotic state; Kelvin receives only marginal information from the two scientists Snaut and Sartorius. Gibarian, the third scientist, killed himself. The next morning, Kelvin wakes up in his cabin next to a young woman. This resembles his dead wife Hari, for whose suicide he feels responsible. Kelvin soon learns that all the researchers on the ward are confronted with their incarnate memories. Snaut has resigned, while Sartorius doggedly works on a method to neutralize the phenomena they call "guests".

Kelvin tries several times to get rid of Hari's doppelganger, but she always returns to him unharmed. “Hari” is noticeably developing its own consciousness: because she has overheard a conversation, she knows that she is a duplicate of Kelvin's memories. She makes a suicide attempt by drinking liquid oxygen , but soon comes back to "life". Later she appears increasingly as a separate personality, and Kelvin accepts her as such. When Kelvin sinks more and more into his memories, she lets Sartorius destroy her with an annihilator. The researchers irradiate the ocean with Kelvin's electroencephalogram , causing islands to form on its surface. In the last scene, Kelvin visits his father, but the reunion turns out to be an illusion: The parents' house and the father are materializations from Kelvin's memory.

background

Book and film

In October 1968, Tarkovsky had proposed the filming of Lem's novel as his next project to the central Soviet film bureau Goskino . Tarkovsky on his decision to film Lem's novel:

“Lem [has] dealt with a topic that is close to me in SOLARIS [...] It is about the conflict between self-conquest, firm conviction and moral versatility on the one hand and the conditions of one's own fate on the other. The intellectual horizon of the novel has nothing in common with the genre science fiction. Appreciating SOLARIS only because of the genre would not do justice to the salary. "

In the course of the plot, Tarkowski largely stuck to the template, but added a longer, earth-playing exposition in which Kelvin visits his father. The last scene of the film, in which the psychologist Kelvin encounters the image of his father and remains in his memories, is not included in the novel. In the template, the final annihilation of the materializations succeeds, Kelvin finally lands on one of the islands and looks at the ocean.

Production and film launch

In June 1969 Tarkowski completed work on the manuscript, and in May of the next year he selected the cast, for which he had meanwhile even considered the Swedish actress Bibi Andersson . The shooting of his first color film, for which he had a budget of 900,000 rubles , began in March 1971. The city shots at the beginning of the film were made in Tokyo .

On December 30, 1971, the finished film was shown by the state film company Mosfilm . Despite numerous editions, including cuts in scenes on earth that were felt to be too long and the deletion of religious and erotic allusions, Tarkowski made only a few changes, which were finally accepted by the director of Goskino, Alexei Romanow.

Solaris started on March 20, 1972 in the Soviet Union and ran as the official representative of his country in May 1972 at the Cannes International Film Festival , where it received a special award. It started in GDR cinemas on September 20, 1974 (for tactical reasons in the original with subtitles - the German dubbing was only created in 1989 for the revival) and in 1977 in the Federal Republic of Germany .

Lem himself was dissatisfied with Tarkowski's filming all his life. Tarkowski, too, made negative comments about Solaris in later years and, among other things, put too much emphasis on science fiction elements.

analysis

In Tarkowski's film, the researchers surround themselves on their station with books, paintings, sculptures and other art objects from ancient and modern times. The painting The Hunters in the Snow by Pieter Bruegel , shown repeatedly, plays a prominent role .

"All these objects are [...] tangible signs that mankind should take all the immeasurable earthly treasures with them on their space travel and face the frightening emptiness of the cosmos armed with their spiritual wealth." (Vera Šitowa)

For Georg Seeßlen , this intellectual wealth "and the complexity associated with it" will be fatal for people:

“Because people drag their past, their suffering and their memories with them into space, they have to reach their limits. [...] Like « 2001 », Tarkovsky's film is an attempt on the boundaries of human culture. "

Phil Hardy sees an essential problem of the film in these very limits:

“Solaris itself is presented as a gigantic brain, or rather, intelligent substance (God?) [...] it works like a consciousness is said to work, and any attempt to understand its secrets is doomed to pushing the limits of the human mind. [...] the intellectual content of the film [is] an accumulation of antiquated, romantic clichés. [...] both 2001 and Solaris offer intellectual banalities wrapped in cinematic brilliance. "

synchronization

Of Solaris , there are similar from Tarkovsky's films Andrei Rublev (1966) and Stalker (1979), a German West synchronization that was created in 1979 by the ARD, and a Ostsynchronisation the DEFA , which originated in the GDR at the revival 1989th The DEFA synchronization is on the Icestorm DVD. The speakers of both versions in detail:

Actress role ARD Synchro 1979 DEFA synchro 1989
Donatas Banionis Kris Kelvin Klaus Kindler Justus Fritzsche
Natalya Bondarchuk Hari Traudel Haas Dagmar Dempe
Wladislaw Dworshezki Burton Christian Rode Dieter Bellmann
So Sarkissian Gibarian Joachim Cadenbach Walter Niklaus
Anatoly Solonitsyn Sartorius Wolfgang Pampel Friedhelm Eberle
Yuri Yarvet Snaut Peter Fitz Peter Panhans
Olga Barnet mother ? Ruth Friemel
Nikolai Grinko father ? Siegfried Voss
Yulian Semyonov Chairman of the
investigative
commission 		? Walter Jackel

Reviews

Lexicon of the international film : “A philosophical fable that revolves around the occidental ideas of death, love and resurrection. A brilliantly staged, extremely rich and multi-layered film that, in the guise of a technical utopia, questions the hubris of traditional belief in progress. "

Awards

Further films

Web links

Wikiquote: Solaris (1972)  - Citations

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Andrei Tarkowski: Film as Poetry, Poetry as Film . Keil-Verlag, Bonn 1989, ISBN 3-921591-12-0 .
  2. ^ A b c Vida T. Johnson, Graham Petrie: The Films of Andrei Tarkovsky: A Visual Fugue. Indiana University Press, 1994, ISBN 978-0-253-20887-3 , pp. 98 ff.
  3. ^ Robert Bird: Andrei Tarkovsky: Elements of Cinema. Reaction Books, 2008, ISBN 978-1-86189-342-0 , p. 159.
  4. ^ Solaris in the Internet Movie Database .
  5. ^ A b Solaris in the Lexicon of International FilmsTemplate: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used .
  6. ^ Official website of Stanisław Lem .
  7. ↑ Kraft Wetzel (Ed.): Cinema. Critical film magazine. No. 15, Berlin 1974. Quoted from Georg Seeßlen: Kino des Utopischen. History and Mythology of Science Fiction Films. Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1980, p. 224.
  8. ^ Georg Seeßlen: Cinema of the Utopian. History and Mythology of Science Fiction Films. Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1980, p. 224.
  9. ↑ "Solaris itself is presented as a giant brain, or rather an intelligent substance (God?) [...] it functions as a conscience is said to function, and any attempt to understand its mysteries is doomed to come up against the limits of man's own mind. [...] the intellectual content of the film would be seen as a set of very antiquated romantic cliches. […] Both 2001 and Solaris offer intellectual banalities cloaked in cinematic splendor […] “- Phil Hardy (Ed.): The Aurum Film Encyclopedia - Science Fiction. Aurum Press, London 1991, p. 304.
  10. ↑ Solaris (ARD Synchro) in the German synchronous file
  11. ^ Solaris (DEFA-Synchro) in the German synchronous file