Solaris

UPC: 037429172124

Studio: Criterion

MPAA Rating: PG   Contains:[Adult Situations, Questionable for Children]

Summary: Based on a novel by Stanislaw Lem, Solaris centers on widowed psychologist Kris Kelvin (Donata Banionis), who is sent to a space station orbiting a water-dominated planet called Solaris to investigate the mysterious death of a doctor, as well as the mental problems plaguing the dwindling number of cosmonauts on the station. Finding the remaining crew to be behaving oddly and aloof, Kelvin is more than surprised when he meets his seven-years-dead wife Khari (Natalya Bondarchuk) on the station. It quickly becomes apparent that Solaris possesses something that brings out repressed memories and obsessions within the cosmonauts on the space station, leaving Kelvin to question his perception of reality. Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the 1972 Cannes Film Festival, Solaris was remade by Steven Soderbergh in 2002. ~ Matthew Tobey, Rovi

Category: Science Fiction

Awards: Special Jury Grand Prix – Cannes Film Festival Film Presented – Telluride Film Festival Film Presented – Telluride Film Festival

Features: New digital transfer with restored picture and sound, enhanced for widescreen televisions
Audio commentary by Tarkovsky scholars Vida Johnson and Graham Petrie, co-authors of "The Films of Andrei Tarkovsky: A Visual Fugue"
Nine deleted and alternate scenes
Video interviews with lead actress Natalya Bondarchuk, cinematographer Vadim Yusov, art director Mikhail Romadin, and composer Eduard Artemyev
Documentary excerpt with Solaris author Stanislaw Lem
Essays on Solaris by Akira Kurosawa and Phillip Lopate
New and improved English subtitle translation
Optimal image quality: RSDL dual-layer edition

Solaris

Format: DVD

Release Date: 11/26/2002

Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1 Cinemascope

Audio: DD1 Dolby Digital Mono

Runtime: 169 Minutes

Sides: 2

Number of Discs: 2

Language(s) Russian

Subtitles: English

Chapters: Side #1 -- Disc 1
1. Opening Credits
2. Earth
3. Berton's Interrogation
4. A Floating Object
5. The Scientists' Debate
6. Family Relations
7. Truth
8. City of the Future
9. Bonfire
10. Lift-Off
11. Solaris
12. Gibarian's Message
13. Sartorius
14. Snaut
15. Kris' Visitor
16. Escape Pod
17. Contact
18. Hari II
19. "The Door Opens the Other Way"
20. Sartorius' Laboratory
21. Home Movie
22. An Encephalogram
23. Hari's Story
24. The Library
25. "Hunters in the Snow"
26. 30 Seconds of Weightlessness
27. Liquid Oxygen
28. "I'm Afraid"
29. Kris' Wounds
30. Letter From Hari
31. The Meaning of Life
32. The House
33. Color Bars
1. Tarkovsky's Collaborations
2. Donatas Banionis
3. The Soviet Film Bureaucracy
4. The Issue of Special Effects
5. Narrative Consistency
6. Tarkovsky & His Parents
7. Moral Knowledge
8. Russian & Western Audiences
9. Clues
10. Stanislaw Lem's Novel, "Solaris"
11. Yuri Yarvet
12. The Sets: Kris' & Gibarian's Rooms
13. Sculpted Time
14. Sos Sarkisian
15. Color vs. Black & White
16. Kris' Reasons
17. How Could Hari Know?
18. "Islands of Memory"
19. The Ocean's Motives
20. Hari's Humanity
21. A Dysfunctional Family
22. Color & Texture
23. Natalya Bondarchuk
24. Western Culture
25. Bach & Breughel
26. Levitation as a Motif
27. Hari's Writhing
28. "Solaris" as Science Fiction
29. Ambiguity
30. Film Stocks
31. Big Issues
32. Questions & Possible Answers
33. Color Bars

Lucia Bozzola

Conceived partly as the anti-2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), Andrei Tarkovsky's Solaris (1972) weaves a hypnotic fable about love, humanity, and memory out of its science fiction premise. Reinstating the detritus of everyday existence absent from 2001's future vision, Tarkovsky's tracking shots and long takes reveal the space station's claustrophobia and decay; the beautiful early images of nature further underline the ugly, dehumanizing effects of technology. Shifts between color and black-and-white, an enticingly old-fashioned space station library, and the evocatively ambiguous ending interweave past and present, as pragmatist Kelvin's re-acquaintance with his dead wife, Khari, suggests the dramatic stakes of trying to erase the past . Regardless of the political message that could be inferred regarding the Soviet bureaucracy, Solaris was the rare Tarkovsky film that avoided extensive mandated edits and received a relatively normal U.S.S.R. release; it was, however, cut by 35 minutes by the American distributor in 1976. Restored to its original length in 1990, Solaris has garnered more and more fans for its cerebral yet rapturous inquiry into what it means to be human. ~ Lucia Bozzola, Rovi

Cast and Crew: Eduard Artemyev  Composer (Music Score) 
Andrei Tarkovsky  Director 
Andrei Tarkovsky  Screenwriter 
Fridrikh Gorenshtein  Screenwriter 
Natalya Bondarchuk  Actor 
Jüri Järvet  Actor 
Donatas Banionis  Actor 
Anatoli Solonitsin  Actor 
Vladislav Dvorzhetsky  Actor 
Nikolai Grinko  Actor 
Sos Sarkisyan  Actor 
Tamara Ogorodnikova  Actor 

Country: USSR