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Solaris is my favorite Tarkovsky film. Some observations: * When they assist the exhausted Kelvin to his room near the end, his body blocks the light but occas
by xamuel 4y ago
Solaris is my favorite Tarkovsky film. Some observations:
* When they assist the exhausted Kelvin to his room near the end, his body blocks the light but occasionally his body moves so the light can come through and blind the camera. This parallels the discussion about destroying the visitors with a burst of light.
* Burton's extended unexplained car ride is (in my opinion) a nod to the 2001 star-gate. It's quite brilliant how Tarkovsky shows that what Kubrick achieves with exotic special effects can be achieved with everyday footage if we just look from the right angles and play the right soundtrack.
* In the old footage they watch near the start of the film, we see stylistic artwork of important figures in the background. These would certainly be informed by Tarkovsky's expertise on Orthodox Iconography (see his "Andrei Rublev").
* Interesting to compare and contrast the visitors with Kubrick's "HAL". The visitors are purely physical and totally unaware of where they are/what's going on. HAL is purely mental and totally omniscient. Both raise all kinds of interesting metaphysical questions about personality and the soul.
* The swirling water-plants at the beginning and end of the film are evoked by the paper strips the crew hang up on their ventilators.
* Near the beginning, Kelvin stands outside in pouring rain, as if not noticing it, when he could escape it by walking just a few feet. This becomes very meaningful with part of the twist in the ending.
* Young Burton talks about how gigantic the child he saw in Solaris's ocean was. Later, when the visitor is frozen from the dry-ice suicide attempt, we briefly catch a glimpse of her face reflected in a concave mirror which makes it seem monstrously gigantic.
Right now the entire film is available free on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LutMHAeCfLU&t=5193s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LutMHAeCfLU&t=5193s (turn on closed captions unless you speak Russian)
- _a_a_a_ 4y agoPerhaps all that counts for you but all I'm getting from it is "stuff happens" and you're picking up patterns which may or may not be there, and if they are then so what. It sounds very typical of 70s films. However I have read Stanislaw Lemand respect him so I'm working up the courage to try and watch it sometime. Trouble is I know I'm going to be bored crapless and wish I hadn't. If anyone can convince me I'm wrong I'd like that.
- xamuel 4y ago>Trouble is I know I'm going to be bored crapless You're certainly right. All Tarkovsky's films are astonishingly boring. It takes a lot to be able to appreciate that sort of film. Learning to enjoy boredom is one of the greatest things I've developed in my life. It's like a superpower, it enables me to read vast quantities of dry but wonderful nonfiction, for example. I wish I had developed this power decades ago, but maybe that wouldn't have been possible without the necessary life experience.
- dmoy 4y ago> All Tarkovsky's films are astonishingly boring Is he the one who did the movie for roadside picnic? If so, yea. Also seemed almost completely unrelated to the book.
- _a_a_a_ 4y ago> It takes a lot to be able to appreciate that sort of film to each their own but why bother? I get a break from work and entertainment from films, I simply can't understand what you're getting out of it.
- megmogandog 4y agoPersonally I don't find his films boring at all. They are definitely slow-paced, but are totally engrossing for me. I have to assume a lot of the people who praise Tarkovsky so highly also don't find his films "astonishingly boring"
- 4y ago
- horsh1 4y ago> Burton's extended unexplained car ride What do you mean unexplained? They clearly were showing the future. The multi-level Tokyo highways were percieved as extremely futuristic by the soviet audience. There was nothing like that in the Union at the time.
- horsh1 4y ago... Using Tokyo as the vision of the future ten years before Blade Runner and Akira.
- pavlov 4y agoDefinitely. But the length of the first-person driving scene is unexplained in the story universe, and feels somewhat out of place in Tarkovsky’s own body of work. I would agree it conceptually mirrors the “2001” stargate sequence.
- WalterBright 4y ago> It's quite brilliant And unbearably boring.
- TedDoesntTalk 4y agoIf you read the book first, then watch the film, it is not boring. At least it was not for me.