Solaris

[poliphilo]

It must be something like 30 years since I first saw Tarkovsky's Solaris. I watched it for the second time yesterday and it's amazing how well my memories of it hold up. But Tarkovsky is like that. You may not understand him, you may not even like him, but once you've seen one of his movies there's no way you're ever going to forget it.

Solaris is his most accessible film. It's still makes extraordinary demands on the concentration and patience of the viewer. Who else would begin a sci-fi adventure with 45 minutes worth of footage of people mooching around in a dacha? It's remarkable how the Soviet system was prepared to nurture this awkward, bloody-minded, intensely individualistic artist. The censorship gave him grief- Andrei Rublev was "edited" to ribbons- but no-one ever stopped him working. Solaris was followed by the magisterial, intensely difficult, intensely personal Mirror and Mirror was followed by Stalker, which is like Solaris with all the fun taken out. Great movies- alps of cinematic art- but pop-corn fare they ain't.

Compare and contrast with Orson Welles's experience in Hollywood.

Things to look out for in Tarkovsky.
Dogs
Horses
Dachas
Leaking roofs
Rain
Steam
Stream-beds
Fire.

Comments

[silent-mouse.livejournal.com]

I remember his movies as the main source for my childhood fears and nightmares, I'm afraid. They are not very suitable for 7 years-old, I suppose. I really should watch them again now.

The book that Stalker movie is based on made a very big impression on me when I was a teenager. It is quite different from the movie, I think, and not written as well as it could have been, but it very interesting nevertheless.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Um yes, it would never occur to me to sit a 7 year old down in front of Tarkovsky.

Stalker is an odd movie. They go on this fearsome quest and then all chicken out at the end. It's as if Frodo had reached the base of Mt Doom and then decided he'd had enough and it was time to go home for tea. I felt cheated.

I've read Stanislaus Lem's Solaris. That's pretty good. I understand that Lem didn't much like what Tarkovsky did with his book.

[silent-mouse.livejournal.com]

To defend my parents a bit - it wasn't a case of "sit a 7 year old down to watch it". It was more like an extremly curious and I'm afraid rather neglected 7 year old playing at the back of the living room quite unnoticed, listening to the soundtrack and glancing occasionally at the screen. And it was shown on TV quite early in the evening.
I think Soviet Union had no real concept of "movies unsuitable for children" (because ther wasn't much violence of sex in them anyway) - or maybe that was just my parents.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I guess what's most unsettling about Tarkovsky is the way he merges dream and "reality". You never know quite where you are in his world. It's a place without boundaries, where almost anything can happen.