Archive of films Solaris / Solyaris

USSR
1972, 167 min

Section: Out of the Past
Year: 2014

To mark the 90th anniversary of the founding of Mosfilm Studios the festival presents the restored version of the famous film meditation on the subconscious, faith, and the sense behind scientific research. This sombre current of impressions, which imposes on the viewer a specific sense of the onerous passing of time, was inspired by Stanisława Lem’s science-fiction novel.

Synopsis

The planet Solaris, discovered at some point in the future, represents a previously unknown form of consciousness. The magical ocean covering its surface has the power to materialise human thoughts. The research station hovering above it gradually succumbs to its influence, and the scientists, pursued by their own delusions, suffer from increasing bouts of depression. Psychologist Kris Kelvin is sent out from Earth to this remote corner of the Universe to try to rescue the mission.… The film, whose newly restored version will be screened to mark the 90th anniversary of the founding of Mosfilm Studios, was adapted from the novel of the same name by Stanisław Lem. Tarkovsky plays down the science-fiction elements of the literary model, instead drawing out the story’s subtler tones. In suppressing the tempo of the narrative he imposes on the viewer a specific sense of the onerous passing of time. In like manner, this meditation on the human subconscious, faith, and the sense behind scientific research becomes a sombre current of delusions, impressions and memories experienced by a lyrical hero whose process of self-knowledge is reflected in the planet’s mysterious ocean.

About the director

Andrey Tarkovsky (b. 1932, Zavrazhye, USSR - 1986, Paris) studied at VGIK. Like a number of his contemporaries he took a keen interest in European art film, particularly works by Bergman, Bresson and Fellini. He debuted with Ivan’s Childhood (Ivanovo dyetstvo, 1962), a lyrical take on the war seen through the eyes of a child, which won him the Golden Lion at the Venice IFF. After the heavy historical drama Andrey Rublyov (1966) he filmed an adaptation of the utopian novel by Stanisław Lem Solaris (1972), and used his own script for his strongly autobiographical Mirror (Zerkalo, 1975). This was followed by Stalker (1979), an adaptation of a novella by the Strugatsky brothers set in a post-industrial landscape. Tarkovsky defected from the Soviet Union in 1982; his meditation on a life in exile Nostalgia (1983) was shot in Italy, his last film The Sacrifice (Offret, 1986) in Sweden.

Contacts

Mosfilm Cinema Concern
Mosfilmovskaya Str. 1, 119 991, Moscow
Russia
Tel: +7 095 143 9700
Fax: +7 095 938 2083
E-mail: [email protected]
www: www.mosfilm.ru

About the film

Color, DCP

Section:	Out of the Past

Director:	Andrey Tarkovsky
Screenplay:	Fridrikh Gorenshteyn, Andrey Tarkovsky podle románu / based on the novel by Stanisław Lem
Dir. of Photography:	Vadim Yusov
Music:	Eduard Artemev
Editor:	Lyudmila Feyginova, Nina Marcus
Production:	Mosfilm
Cast:	Donatas Banionis, Natalya Bondarchuk, Jüri Järvet
Contact:	Mosfilm Cinema Concern