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| Donatas Banionis, Natalya Bondarchuk, J¸ri J‰rvet, Vladislav Dvorzhetsky, Nikolai Grinko, Anatoli Solonitsyn |
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Anamorphic
widescreen |
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Dolby Digital
5.1 |
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DTS |
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Trailer(s) |
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Featurette(s) |
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Documentary |
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Audio commentary
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Deleted scenes
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Concept art
/ storyboards |
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Multi-angle
feature |
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Dr. Sartorius (Anatoli Solonitsyn): Man was created by Nature in order to explore it. As he approaches Truth he is fated to Knowledge. All the rest is bullshit.
A psychologist is sent to a remote space station, where the scientific crew has been experiencing strange hallucinations.
 As
influential a figure as Russian auteur extraordinaire Andrei
Tarkovsky has been, his own pictures remain in a class of their
own, blessed by some intangible sense of introspective poetry that
has gained its own adjective. A unique figure not only because of
his astounding ability at fashioning deeply personal, poetic films
within the highly restrictive Soviet film regime that encouraged
nothing outside 'Socialist Realism', Tarkovsky ultimately gave up
this lifelong battle and lived out the few remaining years of his
tragically short life in exile, shooting his last two pictures in
Italy and Sweden.
Solaris was his second big-budget picture following the highly successful masterpiece Andrei Rublëv, and it was also to be his last. He was able to secure funding for this costly endeavor because the Soviet film board was intent on formulating a cinematic answer to Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, which Tarkovsky dismissed out of hand as a hollow, soulless film. But rather than creating an effects-filled space adventure, Tarkovsky instead latched onto the themes of love, memory and redemption in Polish science-fiction author Stanislav Lem's book, and created an elliptical voyage of discovery. This discovery, however, does not involve the unveiling of alien intelligence or even an unexplained cross-dimensional breakthrough. Rather, a mysterious alien intelligence exerts an influence that makes the protagonist examine and question his own life, dreams, ideas and memories. In later, more personal films like Mirror and Nostalghia!
, this probing of human nature would adapt a more esoteric vein. But like Stalker and Andrei Rublëv, the balance remains geared towards a more accessible, audience-friendly and brilliantly visualized journey that can be counted among the masterpieces of world cinema. |
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A two-disc release produced in Russia for the RusCiCo (Russian Cinema Council) collection is available in most territories. The film is divided across the two discs in the set. A superior two-disc set has more recently been released by the Criterion Collection for Region 1, with the film itself on the first disc and several supplements on the second. The Criterion release served as the basis for this review.
The anamorphic widescreen image
is framed at an aspect ratio of approx. 2.35:1. The striking cinematography has been impressively restored, boasting full colors and outstanding detail. Occasional minute specks on the print are so rare and isolated that they fail to detract from a near-perfect presentation.
The original mono soundtrack is presented in Dolby Digital 1.0. It's been cleaned up and restored using hiss removal technology, and the resulting track sounds adequate, though it does sound shrillish and is disappointingly lacking in bass.
While not quite as feature-packed as some other Criterion two-disc releases, this excellent two-platter release will easily satisfy the many fans of the film, and beats the RusCiCo edition hands down. The audio commentary track, recenly recorded by Tarkovsky scholars Vida Johnson and Graham Petrie, is easily worth the price of admission for anyone with a serious interest in the film. They are the authors of the book 'Andrei Tarkovsky: A Visual Fugue', from which they quote sections occasionally during their dense, information-packed commentary track. Their comments are scholarly and highly analytical in nature, but they fact that they are also highly opinionated makes their track as a whole less dry than it could have been. Much of their analysis succeeds in opening up the film's themes and resonance within Tarkovsky's life and career, and is so packed with fact and background that it easily merits a second or third listen!
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The rest of the supplements are all to be found on disc two. Fans of the film will immediately leap towards the nine deleted and extended scenes, cut by Tarkovsky before taking it onto the festival circuit. Some of the cuts (like the deleted opening text), were clearly wise ones and add little to the film. But others, like 'Kris' Delirium' and 'Further Philosophy' are excellent additions. They have a combined running time of a little over 20 minutes and are all presented in surprisingly good-looking anamorphic widescreen, with very poor audio.
Next up is a five-minute excerpt from a Polish documentary on author Stanislaw Lem. It's an interesting, very nicely edited piece on the book's author, who wasn't too happy with Tarkovsky's adaptation of his story. One drawback to this presentation is that several speakers who appear in the excerpt aren't clearly identified, so we're not always sure who we're actually listening to.
Rounding out the documentary material here are four interviews
with cast members Natalya Bondarchuk and Mikhail Romandin, composer
Eduard Artemyev, and director of photography Vadim Yusov. All of
the interviews are very recent and offer valuable insight into various
aspects of the film in their substantial combined running time of
nearly two hours. The interviews are very nicely edited and well-illustrated
by film clips and still images. Rounding out the extras is a nicely
designed twelve-page booklet with essays by novelist Phillip
Lopate and film director Akira Kurosawa. Once again, another five-star
release from the Criterion Collection that will hopefully pave the
way for more upcoming Tarkovsky releases.  The
animated menu screens on both discs have a stylish design that echoes
the look of the film, with nicely chosen jump cuts of figures appearing
and disappearing like ghosts.
Dan
Hassler-Forest
Reviewed:
May 2, 2003
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here for IMDB info on Solaris.
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