The premise left out why solaris did what it did. We know one action and the peculiar problem it creates for human visitors.
But why did it do that? What was the purpose?
Was it a defensive mechanism?
Was it a random effect? (Like eating psychoactive mushrooms?)
Was it just a plot device for the actual story?
What was the point of the story?
What happened to the security team?
first your last three questions... plot and story is not the point of the movie, so what happened to the security team is not of concern to the movie/filmmaker... nor is the "story" of what happens either...
the movie seems more concerned with the ideas of loss, of the inability to really know someone else, of the subjectivity of being human, the unreliability of memory and the stories we tell ourselves... and such...
the question of what Solaris' intention is, if it even has one is not really something the movie bothers with either.. in fact it is dismissed within the movie by one of the characters...
i took it as just an odd side effect if being near Solaris... so i guess i just took it at face value so that i could focus on the main themes of the film...
i like the catharsis at the end, even though it raises the question of Solaris' intention again...
Plus, one of the themes going on in a lot of Stanislaw Lem's work was the potential that alien intelligence could be completely inscrutable to humans. Solaris might have its own reasons which our human brains could never understand.
shareI think you're on the right track. I grew up fascinated with Alien intelligence and how humans would interact with them, but Hollywood and most Science-Fiction stories follow two main tropes; they're either TOO SMART for us to comprehend or hostile invaders who want our resources. The former seems to fall into Solaris' premise but I think the the intelligence of the planetoid is that it isn't interested in humanity as much as it is actively engaged with humanity's biological mechanisms. The entire act of duplicating a lost love one implies that it recognizes the power of human emotion so it does the first thing we as humans wish we could do (defy death, never lose the ones we love) but don't have the capability. The movie doesn't elaborate on this premise, but I think that's the driving force.
The act of any biological organism is to maintain its survival. For a majority earthbound living organisms we do it through sexual reproduction, and as parents to the next generation we try to instill a piece of us into the subsequent generation in hopes of perpetuating our immortality. Solaris seems to have transcended the reproductive cycle and allows life to reanimate or recreate itself all over again.
"The movie doesn't elaborate on this premise, but I think that's the driving force. "
That is the ONLY driving force in the movie, and the reason anything of particular reason is occurring....and it is woefully understated and used as a prop for clooneys love story....with a happy ending of course...(yawn)
"plot and story is not the point of the movie"
It has to be, that is the very definition of a movie. The film does narrow it's focus on chris kelvin's "clone" rheya. It also glosses over the unexplained phenomena of these "clones".
It's some sort of individualized human trap,.... would it work on a robot?
Is it a venus fly trap? Is it a defense mechanism?
We get the explanation that the clones are made of higgs boson particles, but that doesn't mean anything. Because everything is made up of higgs boson....
The science and explanations are lacking..... It's just strange phenoma that has some consistency, and chase the pretty girl to the end ...melodrama...
i think Soderberg doesn't care about plot, incedent, or events in this film... it isn't his focus, nor is the minutiae of how these clones manifest or how Solaris has this effect...
Soderberg's made other movies that are plot heavy, where there are a succession of events and everything is pretty much explained (e.g. his movie Side Effects)... this isn't one of those and it is fully intentional...
Defocusing from plot and story allows the filmmaker to explore interesting ideas and themes... the slow pace of the film's editing, with long quiet passages allows the viewer to contemplate the themes, without the distraction of events and explanations... We engange more because we have to bring more of ourselves to the movie, otherwise it's just "a chase the pretty girl melodrama..."
Some quotes/passages from the movie literally telling us this...
"Chris Kelvin: What does Solaris want from us?
Gibarian: Why do you think it has to want something? This is why you have to leave. If you keep thinking there's a solution, you'll die here.
Chris Kelvin: I can't leave her. I'll figure it out.
Gibarian: Do you understand what I'm trying to tell you? There are no answers, only choices."
Answering our question as the audience, but also, showing that Kelvin is still trapped by trying to make sense of his wife's death
And...
"Chris Kelvin: Am I alive, or dead?
Rheya Kelvin: We don't have to think like that any more. We're together now. Everything we've done is forgiven. Everything. "
Catharsis of forgiving one's self
And...
"Gibarian: We take off into the cosmos, ready for anything - - solitude, hardship, exhaustion, death. We're proud of outselves. But when you think about it, our enthusiasm's a sham. We don't want other worlds; we want mirrors."
Film holds a mirror to us instead of showing us something new
And... (ironically)...
"Chris Kelvin: I don't believe that we are predetermined to relive our past."
He says this, even though he has been living in the past since his wife's suicide.
I did appreciate the emotional story of Chris Kelvin, but I'm not convinced that Soderberg putting everything else in the background was a good move.
Snow did not have a great interaction with Solaris, and apparently neither did Gibarian and the missing security team.
So there was much more that needed to be told about the strange "experience" with Solaris.
"Gibarian: Do you understand what I'm trying to tell you? There are no answers, only choices." - that is a complete cop-out from a sci-fi perspective.
The movie did devolve into "chase the pretty girl" to a happy ending. It moved away from humans making contact with an alien life form. A human emotionally regretting past action(s), a do-over option? It's quite disappointing.
It might as well be a time travel movie, I found it quite pointless as a sci-fi film.
I enjoyed it, but I can't dissolve the flaws into higgs boson particles.......
Yeah, i think it's more of a psychological drama than sci fi... Solaris is a device for the storytelling, to be able to explore the emotional themes...
You could probably make a supernatural version of this movie, as a huanted house or something on earth and replace the science fiction elements with fantasy spirits... Certainly not hard sci-fi...
I'm not sure if it's a happy ending... seems bittersweat to me as I'm not sure if Kelvin is real at the end or just another projection of Solaris...
I think I enjoyed the movie more than you did, but I haven't read the book, nor have I seem the original... although I do want to
It likes to fuck with people
shareSolaris felt threatened because of Our presence near it. I'm sure humans would feel pretty nervous if an alien force camped itself right outside Earth's orbit. Solaris was probably feeling uneasy at the presence of an alien life form trying to probe it. Don't forget the comment that Dr. Gordon made to Clooney's character early in the movie...it went something like this: "I was tasked to find out whether Solaris was a viable commercial or energy source". So obviously our intentions were selfish, trying to exploit its resources. And Solaris did not take to kindly to that. So it responded and established contact the only way it knew how. It probed the humans back, getting into their heads and learning what their agenda was, down to the individual. And that's why it tormented those that came there for selfish reasons; (Gordon):For seeking energy sources, (Gibarian): For abandoning his son/not being too keen on having him in the first place/putting the mission before his son and (Snow): for being narcissistic. (Kelvin): was the only one who was rewarded in the end because Solaris sensed his longing for Rheya and that his goal was to be with her, not exploit Solaris or advance the interests of the mission. The best way Solaris knew how to reward at least. By giving him a simulated world that matched his blissful fantasy? Also you could see how the Planet changed colors from blue, to purple, to pink/red in the end. The more the humans kept probing the more it changed colors. That could have been a reaction of some sort.
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