Solaris ( 1972 ) ( Tarkovsky )

Movies Movie Recommendations ( No Spoilers )
1

3.5 stars

it’s not a bad movie but it’s long, slow, dated and over-rated

the only scene i liked was where the girl commits suicide by drinking liquid oxygen and you can see her hard nipples through wet dress while she is convulsing … that was hot !

overall there is maybe about 10-15 minutes of memorable scenes in a movie almost 3 hours long. one hour could easily be cut from the movie with virtually nothing of value lost.

of course artsy fartsy critics will always give higher rating to movies that are unnecessarily long … but i don’t think doing 5 minute shots of some puddle of mud the way Tarkovsky does in both Solaris and Stalker is great art …

in defense of Solaris there is only about 10 - 20 minutes of puddles whereas in Stalker there is a full hour of them …

between the reduced amount of puddles and the aforementioned hot suicide scene Solaris is better than Stalker but overall they are quite similar …

both are very long and mostly dialogue driven …

i was able to enjoy both because i am a native Russian speaker but i can’t recommend either movie to an English speaker …

that one scene was hot though … way ahead of the times !

2

just woke up

while i was in bed i had some thoughts about “Solaris” and i reserve the right to revise my rating upwards later once i watch some Analysis videos

but i don’t know when that will be …

3

after watching all the analysis i could find as well as coming up with my own ideas i’m going to upgrade this movie to 4 stars.

it’s still too slow, it’s still low-rent / soviet ( like a Lada car ) but at the same time it is also a classic for a number of reasons …

my final verdict is yes i recommend it but ONLY if you understand that you’re going to see a very long and slow movie in which almost nothing happens and which is almost intended to be a blank canvas onto which your own imagination has to project the meaning you come up with …

the reason nobody seems to want to offer an analysis of this movie is because it’s almost impossible - there is very little to go on - it’s really meant to be a mirror that reflects your own ideas at you in a sense …

yes there is more to it than that but this is a review not analysis and what i need to convey here is that the movie is good and a classic and worth watching but it’s not a normal movie - it’s a Tarkovsky movie …

realize this movie was made in Soviet Union - a communist country - making money was never even a consideration ! the makers of this movie couldn’t give a rat’s ass about things like popularity ! it was meant as a statement. in fact it was meant to be a response to Kubrick’s 2001 A Space Odyssey and it was meant to show that Kubrick doesn’t know how to make movies …

but it’s not that Kubrick doesn’t know how to make movies it’s that Kubrick had to make sure his movies make money while Tarkovsky didn’t …

between “Solaris” and “Stalker” i find Solaris much better, even though the similarities in style are very strong.

but whereas “Stalker” has almost nothing at all to go on just your imagination reflecting back at you for 3 hours in “Solaris” there is almost enough happening too stimulate this imagination of yours …

all in all a great classic but you have to understand what you’re getting into. basically 3 hours of nothing. it throws out some ideas but mostly it just creates space for your own ideas and interpretations, which makes it great art but definitely not for everybody.

if you are really smart you will invent your own meaning for this movie basically. but if you aren’t that smart then it’s not for you.

if i had to rate it as purely sci-fi action i would give it 2 stars. if i had to rate it as a historically significant work of art i would give it 5 stars. overall i’m giving it 4 stars.