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Solaris is wonderful, care to answer some questions? Spoliers

posted 10 years ago by PrashunChakraborty
4 replies | jump to latest

So I watched this film a couple of days ago, and it has stuck with me, I liked it a lot and the events of the film haunt me. There are a few questions in my mind which aren't going away, they may have been answered in the movie itself but I may have missed them:

1. Why is it that the guests created by Solaris are so simple and bare-bones, who can barely talk and do any human functions whereas Hari is a complex, fleshed out specimen who is capable of speech and logical reasoning?

2. I noticed just like Hari, the guests are very devoted to their partner? Originator? The young girl seems to be obsessed with Gibarian trying to take care of him. Is this a way of saying that Solaris is a kind entity and only wishes to understand and help humans?

3. What's so special about Kris? Why are his brain waves sent to Solaris? Why not anyone else?

4. Shouldn't Kris have been instructed to keep in touch with Earth base? and keep them posted on the happenings of the Solaris base?

5. Who is Snaut's guest?

6. Why did Sartorious' guest is a dwarf? is he trolling (for lack of a better word) Solaris?

7. What does the girl do now, since Gibarian is dead?

8. During the birthday party scene Hari gives a passionate speech about the guests and how they may be more human than their originators is my favorite scene from the film but when Hari says those lines are they from an apparition created by Solaris or the entity Solaris itself i.e. the consciousness of the planet itself speaking through Hari?

9. As far as the end is concerned I always thought that Kris died or went to permanent sleep (remember there is a dialogue in the film about sleep resembling death but peaceful) and his conscience/spirit stayed on Solaris but my research on this board yields that a lot of people believe he physically landed on Solaris.

10. The scene with the mother came out of nowhere, she wasn't a guest, was Kris dreaming? Was this dream aided by Solaris? Also I noticed that though the mother died young she is shown as an attractive woman sporting the same same hairstyle as Hari, do these hint towards the oedipal nature of Kris?

11. Burton's guest was a giant 4 foot tall baby? I never understood that, I thought he met the boy after he came back from Solaris. Also why is it gigantic?

12. Can the crew have more than one guest each, because in my copy of the movie Snaut always uses the plural word guests not guest.

13. HariI and HariII. Are they the same entity? I am inclined to believe they are the same entity because when HariII consumes liquid oxygen and commits suicide and is bought back to life she retains her previous memories and doesn't seem like a new entity i.e. HariIII but then why doesn't HariII mention anything about the rocket trickery by Kris?

14. Should I watch the 2002 remake?

Lastly I know that there maybe no answers to all questions. There is a lot of mystery in this film and it adds to it's charm. Further even Tarkovsky didn't want to answer all the questions. However it would be nice if I could get some closure from this film before I move to Tarkovsky's Stalker heard great things about that one.

Oh yes the most important question - Would you leave Solaris if it created your ideal albeit fake world?

[–] MajDutch 10 years ago

1. Solaris creates guests based on materialization of one's conception of the person. The difference between Kris' guest Hari and others was that she was from Kris' past i.e. she's capable of logic and reasoning, whereas others had something they had never seen before but had thought or imagined, like Gibarian had imagined/thought to be with little girls and he got his wish, but he got scared and ashamed and therefore committed suicide.

2. IMO Solaris is an entity studying humans by interacting with them just like humans wanted to study it by hitting the ocean's surface with strong X-ray beams.

3. Because he has created an emotional bond with Solaris in the shape of Hari.

4. The book is also written this way, little to no communication with earth.

5. It can be anything you want it to be, in the book it's implied that Snaut is pedo and Gibarian liked black women (the time the book was written it was considered a taboo so..)

6. Again it was something he had imagined. In the book it was a dwarf too.

7. Nothing but just roams the station. In the book a black woman roams the station instead (as explained above why).

8. A part of the guest Hari was connected to the ocean and a part was her was becoming human through her experiences on the station. I think it was the human part of her that gave the speech.

9. It's whatever you believe it to be as the climax is very hard to put in words (even in thoughts). What I believe is the ocean created another alternative reality based on his brain waves. The book's ending (different though) is also ambiguous like the movie.

10. It's all metaphor, and something I don't even understand. But not oedipal at all. The hairstyle you saw was common for Russians of that era, besides Hari and Kris' mother had opposing personalities (remember the tea incident Hari talked about).

11. One of the scientists who got lost (or died) in Solaris which Burton went looking for had a baby before he came to Solaris. Solaris absorbed that scientist's memory and created that baby but failed just like it failed with Hari's dress and raining inside the room etc. What Burton saw was that scientist's baby but huge of course, and when he came back to earth from Solaris to meet dead scientist's widow and son, he was again terrified or surprised to see the exact same baby (in human size of course) which he saw on Solaris' waves.

In short, Solaris can't replicate stuff 100% as neutrino systems on which the guests are composed of are unstable.

12. It's one at a time for one person, when he says guests he's referring to everybody's guests.

13. There are only two Hari's (guests). Hari 2 doesn't know about Hari 1 (remember the duplicate dress scene). Hari 2 consumed liquid Oxygen but didn't die, neutrino systems can only be killed through the annihilator as explained in the movie.

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http://img257.imageshack.us/img257/5151/madutch.png

[–] PrashunChakraborty 10 years ago

Thank you for your answers. It explains a lot, I think I will rewatch this once more and then move on to Stalker. For what it's worth I don't think anyone would be able to leave Solaris even though they knew that what Solaris was creating for them wasn't real.

[–] reinis2408 9 years ago

Thanks for the insightful answers!

[–] MajDutch 10 years ago

And no, I wouldn't leave Solaris, my life is a mess and I would want to live rest of my life away from humanity with as little human interaction as possible.

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http://img257.imageshack.us/img257/5151/madutch.png

Solaris is wonderful, care to answer some questions? *Spoliers*

Solaris is wonderful, care to answer some questions? Spoliers