Solaris
I just finished watching Solaris, or I should say, most of it. The original version, not the remake with George Clooney (although now I’m curious about that one …) I can’t resist the urge to say if 2001 was too fast-paced for you, you might like Solaris.
To be fair, it’s gorgeously filmed and has some nice sound design as well, but I can’t help feeling that about 45 minutes or so could have been edited out without much damage to the story (the running time is just shy of 3 hours). The beginning of the movie feels particularly leaden; it takes our hero Dr. Kelvin freaking forever to leave Earth for his business on the Solaris space station. About four times as long as was required to tell the backstory of the problems at the station, and set up Kelvin’s emotional state. Years ago I paged through Lem’s novel in the bookstore and it had Kelvin landing at the station on the first page, so this might have added to my feeling that things were dragging on-screen.
There are also many scenes where the camera pans lovingly over green landscapes, the roiling Solaris Ocean, and even a Breughel painting. It’s very pretty but after while your finger begins inching toward the fast-forward button on the remote …
