Tarkovsky’s ‘Solaris’: Science fiction celebrating the human life

Tarkovsky’s ‘Solaris’: Science fiction celebrating the human life

The best films come to our lives at the perfect time. Not my first Tarkovsky experience (transcendence!) in the film Stalker nor the words of one of my favorite directors Ingmar Bergman―“Tarkovsky for me is the greatest [director], the one who invented a new language, true to the nature of film, as it captures life as a reflection, life as a dream.”―nudged me enough to delve deeper in his work and finally see perhaps his most famous work, the science fiction film Solaris.

The film however came to me at the most opportune time: alone in my damp, dark room, I decided to finally claw myself out of the pile of b-schlockers I like burying myself into. These (bad) horror films, at the time, were diversions, petty little escapes. So, I took myself to see Tarkovsky’s film. And right then and there, it hit me―hard―perhaps the most transformative experience I have had watching a film.

This is when I was eighteen years old, an age that quite literally everything is to some degree transformative; but there’s virtue, I believe, in recognizing your being transformed by something. So here’s I, telling you about it, like some complete idiot J.D. Salinger has helped shape.

Solaris is one of the best science fiction films ever made; it’s one of the best films―period. It’s the sort of film that bears treasure anew with each rewatch.
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I look back to kogonada’s terrific video essay on the film, which perfectly surmises how it celebrates human life by mere rumination, how one floats when falling in love, never mind how the world is changing around him fast. Think of it, too, as a primer to the auteur’s great body of work. Take a look:

If you’ve yet to see Solaris, I strongly recommend that you do. Open Culture has links where you can watch Tarkovsky’s films for free.

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