“Solaris” is one of the top ten, greatest, groundbreaking and purest form of movies one must definitely see. I often wonder how it must have been to live in the seventies when scientific paradigms were shuffled ceaselessly. It was a time when the scientific world was indomitably theorising to have found expressions of the unification theory, the one law that explains everything from the atoms to big bang. It is in the spirit of those days that one must visualise, against the backdrop of the culture that was caustically rooted in scientific ecstasy that one must watch Soalris. If 2001, a space odyssey was the celebration of science giving way to inquisition of the nature of troubled human inventions; solaris is an elevation of philosophy, nature of which can only be understood through the movie. Nothing that I can say about the movie would suffice, it has to experienced through the movie.
Physical laws governing the universe had been largely understood, we were probing deeper into the nature of atoms through chemistry; and the discovery of DNA pulled a string taught, one that stretched to the core of philosophical outlook of the times. Scientific discoveries gave way to science fiction in the general public; every year of the 20th century had a measurable progress in science. The scientific community experienced an impasse in the fifties, but had reinvented and reinforced its gagging nature of inquiry by the seventies. Scientists such as Steven Weinberg headed the committee that submitted appeals for grants to build larger and advanced machines which could help us in progress, for the scientists were theorising faster than the equipment at hands to prove the theories. In this spirit, Solaris is an inquiry, if you can’t plug the movie into its backdrop; you are missing the whole point. It might not even occur to you, that there is a point to begin with.
Tarkovsky explores the frontiers of our conscience with such precision and detail that it cuts like glass. He brandished his wizardy of introspection in “Stalker” with the three fundamental elements of human psychology represented by three of his characters: a writer, a doctor and a stalker. It is often said that Aristotle’s philosophies were so outstanding that progeny dared not climb it at all, they merely explored the furrows of the mountain that Aristotle had raised. Now that is the curse of reverence. Tarkovsky is not plagued by this at all, he is indifferent to the form of art that movies inspire. He operates purely, as a minimalist would. Einstein is often quoted to have said “the most incomprehensible thing about our universe is that it is comprehensible”. Tarkovssky’s movies are statements of philosophy; ones that are achieved only through the scale and magnitude of introspection that movies like Stalker and Solaris are monumental proofs of.
Protagonist’s projection of his wife long died ten years earlier, observes ‘do you know who you are? As soon as I close my eyes, I do not remember my own face’ as the conscience grows outside him, she acquires a personality, individuality. This is the single most premise of the movie that must have impelled Tarkovsky to take upon the project. The helplessness of all the three voyagers in comprehending the solaris, is shown as the struggle between humans’ innate desire to find patterns and the frontiers of our comprehensibility.
‘you love that which you can lose. Yourself, a woman, your country…’ as the projections close in on him, he falls prey to his own memories.
In the decades following the second world war, we had landed man on the moon, discovered the structure of DNA, Hubble’s telescope mapped out the boundaries of our universe, Richard P. Feynman’s Quantum mechanics grew from a science of isolation to full force. It is in the spirit of these times, that movies such as 2001 a space odyssey and solaris have to be viewed. Scientific advances bemused the common man, tickled the philosopher and flummoxed the artist. The limits of our comprehension played on every thinker’s mind. Closing scenes of both these movies-2001, soalris- are testament to the issue that the writers of both these novels grappled with. And both the directors, individually represented the movies with talismanic ability. No more to be said.
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