Solaris

365 Films

Entry #114

Solaris (2002)

Directed by Steven Soderbergh

The Thanksgiving release of Steven Soderbergh’s 2002 Sci-Fi chamber drama Solaris was met with an equal dose of skepticism and outright befuddlement.  Taking advantage of the creative goodwill engendered by the critical and financial successes of Ocean’s Eleven and Erin Brockovich, Soderbergh decided to tackle a remake of a Russian film beloved by plenty but unheard of by more than a lot.  Releasing it as a George Clooney star vehicle over Thanksgiving weekend is just another extension of Soderbergh’s fascinating Hollywood perversions over the years.  In a way, the project was doomed from the start (at least from a financial standpoint) because those most inclined to like it would instantly dismiss the film as a significantly lesser facsimile of the original while the uninitiated would be bored out of their skulls.  Said combination proved to be the film’s downfall as it is definitely one of the least considered projects in Soderbergh’s filmography.  For reasons that should be apparent to those who have been paying attention in this blog (I’m counting all zero of you), stories about transcending doomed romances seem to really Roger my Hammerstein if you catch my drift.  I have only seen Tarkovsky’s original once, and as such, I am not exactly qualified to rigorously comment on the differences between the two.  From what I can recall, Tarkovsky’s film is an immersive and overwhelming experience while Soderbergh’s is a definitely more accessible and streamlined version of the story.  Interesting side note to all this is that when the project was announced, Soderbergh supposedly stated that his take would be closer in spirit to the original Stanislaw Lem novel than Tarkovsky’s version was.  Lem had openly criticized the previous film adaptation and Soderbergh’s intentions were all for naught as Lem quickly followed suit with his dislike of the new version as well.  Why then, do you ask, is a film positioned as a lose-lose proposition ranked among my personal favorites?  The answer to that question is contained entirely within Soderbergh’s ingenious cinematic interpretation of the text.  The way the story has not only been condensed, but also claustrophobically focused on an adult relationship that manifests itself through score, cinematography, set design, and performance.  It is the clarity of vision, through which, Soderbergh presents these abstract and ambiguous ideas about love, sex, and relationships that makes his Solaris such a compelling view.  His detached, clinical approach to a future where Rainy Gray and Sterilized White are the overwhelming color schemes works wonderfully at odds with the desperate attempts of Chris Kelvin (Clooney) to reclaim subconscious control of his love affair. His futile attempts at rekindling what was lost locks Soderbergh’s camera in the fixed point of view of Solaris itself and rather than distance the viewer from his characters’ plight, it strengthens the bond.  One watches and in time, compassionately relates to a man whose fateful choice in life was to love within the world he had created rather than surrender it to the world without.  This is as evocative and powerful science-fiction as we’ve gotten recently we’d be better off if this is what all filmmakers were interested in pursuing when taking on their next big remake assignments.