We don't need other worlds.

There are no blood-thirsty killing-machines aliens in this futuristic world; neither exotic extra-terrestrial women. Humans and human understanding of the world are the themes in which this film revolves around. Solaris (Солярис, 1972) is a soviet science-fiction movie by Andrei Tarkovsky, based on a 1961 novel by Polish writer Stanislaw Lem.

The book was subject to other cinematic adaptations before and after Trakovsky’s. Lem’s novels are quite distinct in the science-fiction world due to his philosophical and existentialist approach; more than just describing new worlds and life forms, he asks himself for our necessities and desires as human beings in those situations. Two main leitmotifs are profusely explored in Lem’s writings. First, our limitation in the understanding of other intelligent life forms and in the communication with them. The ocean-like cloud of Solaris is an object of debate in the story, as whether it is alive or not, and if alive, intelligent or not. I would have to add that we have the very same trouble right now with the very life of our planet, in acknowledging rights and intelligence to non-human animals; so this effect would have to be multiplied when facing alien entities. It is actually extremely hard to imagine profound alien forms. Science-fiction mostly recurs to “humanoid” configurations with more or less plausible explanations and variations since, if we cannot interact with them, what would be the purpose of telling a story. Lem chose, in the visible world, what he found to be the most radically amorphous entity: an ocean-like cloud planet, and called it Solaris.

The second subject is the questioning of technology and the necessity of it. And it is in this second one where he approaches a profound existentialist position that I deem more alluring for architecture and for myself. In fact, Tarkovsky’s divergence over the book makes the film more interesting for our architectural eye.  Literature can be very descriptive of the places but cinema has to show it. The level of definition in film will give much more detail per unit of time: in some seconds we will perceive several pages of information, and that just for the environment. So Tarkovsky takes Lem’s interrogation about our being in the world to what are his and our field, cinema and architecture. Instead of entering directly the action in outer space, he offer us a background which is the one of mankind’s fundamental living space. A forest, the mesmerizing song of a river’s water, the fluttering sound of autumn leaves, the chanting of the birds and a wooden house which one can easily associate with Martin Heidegger’s hut; with Kris Kelvin walking around as a very own philosopher in Holzweg. “He takes a walk every morning for at least an hour.” “It's so pleasant here.  (…) This house reminds me of my grandfather's house.” This seemingly futile dialogue, this preamble, has behind it all the philosophical strength of Heidegger’s hut, and is used to confront it with another reality, the one in which Lem is submerging us into from page one of the book.

Kelvin's "hut" in the forest, just before he leaves Earth.

Solaris Station; innocuous space.

The space-station experience is quite the opposite of the hut: a soulless, colourless and pragmatic space of cold steel, aseptic plastic, with no spiritual purpose. Scarily, the architecture of the space station turns out to be very close to this diluted, white architecture with round shapes of early 21st century Japan. Space exploration becomes the ultimate metaphor of technology in its darkest appearance. Kubrick, in 2001: a space odyssey (1968), a film to which Solaris is usually compared, explored a completely different approach to man in space. It also summarizes the way how American science-fiction films before and later approach the idea of mankind in connection with the universe. On the one hand, the American Universe is a much optimistic place for human beings, where they can colonize other worlds; meet, communicate and even mate with other life forms. The technology is all-capable and either friendly or foe. Fewer times its necessity is questioned, which is the true issue.

On the other hand, the plot will stay inside the movie. This means is either a story in which everything is conclusive or with open questions or stories (where do the aliens come from? what will happen now?) but that are not getting out of the universe of the film. Solaris, in contrast, raises questions that are by purpose spreading outside the account of the film, even with quite relevance in our everyday life.

Are we made as such a separate entity of Earth that we can leave it? Can we live in outer space? Aren’t we confusing ‘surviving’ with ‘living’ almost in the same manner as the modernists before us? Conscious now of the perishability of our planet and our soul we, the scientific-era men and women, found comfort in the immortality of our race. But our existence is profoundly bonded to the conditions of our planet in a very short period of the geological time. We are made for the cabin in the woods, not for pressurised chambers in outer space. For the sounds of birds and water, and the whistle of the wind. Not the noise of machines, the reverberation of metal or the silence of emptiness.

Kelvin, Hari and their images. Mankind looking for a mirror. Hari as a reflection of a person: does that even make any difference for the rest of us?

The film is slow. Very slow. Tarkovsky tries to leave you time to chew and digest events, environments and dialogues that explain these ideas. Some dense passages condensate in a very explicit manner the moral of the film, as in this discourse by Dr. Snaut character:

Science? Nonsense! In this situation mediocrity and genius are equally useless! I must tell you that we really have no desire to conquer any cosmos. We want to extend the Earth up to its borders. We don't know what to do with other worlds. We don't need other worlds. We need a mirror. We struggle to make contact, but we'll never achieve it. We are in a ridiculous predicament of man pursuing a goal that he fears and that he really does not need. Man needs man!

But even that extra time seems not enough; as Ebert stated: “Everything in the film needed to be seen in a new light. There was so much to think about afterwards”. Indeed that last paragraph would need a whole article per sentence just to contextualize its philosophical grounds.

Further reading:

Tarkovsky, Andrey (1989). Sculpting in Time: reflections on the cinema. University of Texas Press. ISBN 978-0-292-77624-1

Skakov, Nariman (2012). The Cinema of Tarkovsky: Labyrinths of Space and Time. I.B.Tauris. ISBN 978-1-84885-630-1

Dan Schneider column, mostly for Americanised audiences:
http://www.altfg.com/blog/film-reviews/solaris-andrei-tarkovsky/

Late Roger Ebert’s column at Chicago Sun-Times:
http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-solaris-1972

The Criterion Collection releases Blue Ray and DVD restored editions:
http://www.criterion.com/films/553-solaris