Despite repeated attempts, I have never managed to watch this movie all the way through; I usually die of boredom about an hour in, and this is very unusual for me (after a lifetime of enthusiasm about movies, this and Jean-Luc Goddards "Weekend" are the only movies I've ever walked out of).
Does anything ever actually happen? Other than a lot of pretentious yakking?
(Contrariwise I loved the Soderburgh version.)
Andrei made sure his film was up to snuff before he released it. He worked hard on it. Make some coffee on the hour mark and then you will be enlightened......;-)...
shareThe Soderberg (sp?) version is dreadful. McElhone comes across as a whiner. I also think that it would have been better to go back to the novel, rather than aping (unsuccessfully) Tarkovsky. There's a tenderness in this film, which is somehow lacking in the remake.
I do have several criticisms of the film -
1) That car ride. Even Tarkovsky made a facetious remark about it.
2) The home video - surely if it was that, it wouldn't be a Tarkovsky-esque production with no dialogue, and beautiful poses, but a more amateurish affair, with the family saying silly things to one another. Anyway, I digress.
3) The philosophical points and the motifs can be overegged. I mean, does there have to be a picture book in every room they go into? The discussions teeter between the profound and beautiful, and the pretentious... Fortunately, they rarely boil over into that. Still, a space station like that, would have people's personal posters, much more personal effects, and the scientists would have the odd mundane conversation with one another etc.
>> 2) The home video - surely if it was that, it wouldn't be a Tarkovsky-esque production with no dialogue, and beautiful poses, but a more amateurish affair, with the family saying silly things to one another. Anyway, I digress. <<
This is partly why it works so well for me.
Many years before there was home video, my father bought a cine camera which did not record sound. He took some amazingly arty family shots that are achingly beautiful, and very, very reminiscent of the sequences in Solaris. He took one of me when I was a toddler in 1964 or 1965, walking around in the garden in the snow in Derbyshire.
I'm sure that's the case, but most home movies are not like that, even old ones. Tarkovsky should have deliberately changed the style a bit for them. After all, there's no evidence that Kris Kelvin or his family went to film school or studied cinematography at any length. Tarkovsky's greatest strength and greatest weakness is that his films tend to be about him - he's far too introverted sometimes, and the beauty and the failings come out of that sometimes.
sharea note to the OP, go watch Star Wars, or better yet, watch Shoah. star wars will keep you adequately entertained, Shoah will leave you numb by its subject matter and length.
HELP ME!!! I need to know if I am alone. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFzThGyt5vM
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Long and slow though it may be, I think it was actually a stroke of genius for AT to pace it out the way he did... I admit to having dozed off my first time (I often do when taking in a film just before bedtime) and awoke just before the ending; and yikes, the CHILLS that I got!!
"POWER TO THE PEOPLE WHO PUNISH BAD CINEMA!!!"
Solaris (1972) was too slow most of the time. Solaris (2002) was too rushed most of the time. I think a balance needs to be struck somewhere in between, with a slight bent towards 1972. And it should be a re-adaptation of the novel. I think 140 minutes would be great for a new movie version.
What movie really killed me with its pacing was "In the Realm of the Senses." Despite it being only 97 minutes, I felt like I was stuck in my chair for 3 f&&cking hours! I never knew that unsimulated sex and BDSM choking could be so boring!
Proud member of SHREWS (Society for the Honor Required of Eyes Wide Shut)
Ha! I agree about "In the Realm of the Senses.". It was the first of my netflix rentals (after 3 years) that I fast forwarded through.
I almost gave up on "Stalker", then it clicked.
Poets are made by fools like me, but only God can make STD.
With both Stalker and Solaris, Tarkovsky made films which had little resemblence to the original novels. However, I think in the case of Solaris it worked (most of the time), but in Stalker it generally fails for a variety of reasons.
shareHowever, I think in the case of Solaris it worked (most of the time), but in Stalker it generally fails for a variety of reasons.If it worked in Solaris when you "think", maybe it'll also work in Stalker when you "think".
Slow or fast, you can't please everyone.
One either hates or loves Tarkovsky's version. It either works for you or it doesn't.
It works for me. It always had.
It works for me, apart from that bloody scene in the car. Even Tarkovsky said it was to "drive the idiots out of the cinema". A bit sadistic, and contrary to his supposed humanitarianism.
shareThat scene is brilliant, although I admit it is excruciatingly painful to watch. But not all good things must please ones eye to be appreciated. The moment of silence when this scene ends makes up for all the torture the car ride brings.
The scene is punctuating the contrasts between the nature and human creations. Lines, noises, shapes, are all different. It shows how primitive our human creations really are in comparison with nature (God's creation). It emphasizes how crude the idea to blast ocean with magnetic waves really is. How little we understand as humanity.
"That scene is brilliant, although I admit it is excruciatingly painful to watch."
I don't think it is brilliant, I think it is a sadistic act of intellectual snobbery by Tarkovsky. I live it every rush hour! I think Tarkovsky's cruelty in this runs contrary to his messages about human tenderness elsewhere in the film.
" It shows how primitive our human creations really are in comparison with nature (God's creation). It emphasizes how crude the idea to blast ocean with magnetic waves really is. How little we understand as humanity."
Yes, generally agree with this. That perhaps is its redeeming feature, but still too long/..
How little we understand anything else!
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It's not "sci-fi", it's SF!
This film contains a four minute scene of watching traffic with a casio keyboard synthesizer soundtrack.
i love slow movies
dances with wolves one of the best
Once Upon a Time in America great
Sátántangó wonderful
Aguirre: The Wrath of God masterpiece
days of heaven good movie
down by low and all movies of Jim Jarmusch great
the triology of Silence for Ingmar Bergman
I've been watching it in fragments. It does move slowly, but the story is intriguing enough for me to continue watching. Whenever I'm bored, I just say, "well might as well watch another 20 minutes of solaris."
shareIt's weird when people complain about Tarkovsky and say that "the car scene was the most boring bit in the movie". To me, that part was entertaining; the most boring parts in Tarkovsky's movies (which are few and far between) are usually the dialogue-heavy scenes.
Same goes for 2001.
Thank you! You've just summed it up. The other comments here suggest that it becomes thought provoking and stimulating at some point, so I'm going to force my self to continue watching it.
So far the only thoughts that have been provoked are along the lines of "why does he keep going to monochrome?", "why do we need a two minute shot of a man lying motionless on a bed?" and "why does the space station look like a soviet state-run massage parlour?"
Totally agreed. I attempted to watch it last night - I've owned the DVD for years and finally decided to watch it - and shut it off about 45 minutes in. :/ Boring.
Oh, Adrian. Adrian always tells the truth.
I've heard from numerous sources that this films is coma-inducingly slow and dull so I was prepared for a battle through it.
Wasn't really bored at all.
Thought Andrei Rublyev was far more dull and difficult to watch.
I wish my hair was Emo so that it would cut itself
I honestly fell asleep around that 45 minute mark. Woke up, watched an hour of Hell's Kitchen on TV and then turned Solaris back on and fell asleep again after another 40 minutes. There is really nothing interesting about this movie. I feel like the acting is weak and the dialogue is growing increasingly annoying.
I wish the characters would just talk like normal people and blurt out everything that is going on instead of making it a drawn out mystery. I suppose that is the only thing keeping the movie remotely interesting.
The pacing outright sucks. I felt like I could find at least a dozen better things to do with my life during the car scene. When my real life drive to work is more interesting than a movie scene, I have to wonder how much worse it can get.
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I must have stumbled into the wrong genre.
I thought The Hurt Locker was pretty nice visually while still keeping the pace moving. I admit they could have showed me the true elapsed time where the guy is looking through the sniper rifle, trying not to blink or move, but that would have killed the pacing (and entertainment value) of the movie.
I'll just stare at this for fifteen minutes:
http://www.imdb.com/media/rm3624963072/tt0887912
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I understand we all have different tastes.
I approached this movie with an open mind, patience, and every benefit over doubt, but it isn't my thing.
I will move along.
That you are able to watch something as insipid and stupid as "Hell's Kitchen" tell us everything we need to know - you're a moron.
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"What goes on out there, is a disgrace": http://deathwishcreeps.com
I have better things to do than watch Solaris again or communicate with idiots that think they are somehow superior for liking it.
I'll side with th 30% of Netflix users that appear to understand the movie but fail to be moved by it.
Wait, you can watch 'Hell's Kitchen' for a full hour but find 'Solaris' annoying?!
shareVery true. This whole concept of boring is cultural and articifial. We are taught to certain pace. My seven and three year old sons both love 2001 and they wanted to see it twice in a row on two days (well, I had the film from library so we couldn't watch it more than twice but they have asked to see it many times since). They found it mesmerizing. I admit that I had to explain some things during film like some laws of physics, human behaviour, intelligence and memory and also little about "space babies" but man they loved this film! I'm not trying to tell how clever my kids are, even though I naturally think they are ;) but this is just to show that tempo isn't so simple thing as it looks.
BTW my older son even saw Stalker and liked it too! I was just watching that film by myself and he wanted to check it out. Let the calm rhythm take you gently like soft waves. Give a little time to art. It can reward you.
We will watch Solaris one day but I'm hesitating a little as it has some graphic dark subject matter in it...
"zoom back camera"
Thanks for that post, it's needed here. I've often experienced that books/films I feel have a calm, even relaxing or just right tempo bores other people to death or makes them call it 'too slow'. I don't know if this is because I'm a bit slow myself (!) or if it's something else. Sometimes I can understand why some people consider a film or book slow. But then there are also times when that "possibility" of feeling completely escapes me. For example, I read somewhere that someone thought that Eyes Wide Shut had a slow pace - I never thought of it! Someone described a scene in Barry Lyndon, where the main character and his wife sits in a carriage while he is smoking and you can see how far the two of them are from each other emotionally, and Vivaldi's music is playing in the background - I always thought of this scene as beautiful, not to say perfect, while this person was screaming of boredom & frustration because it wasn't 'happening anything'.
Oh, well I didn't intend to write a whole essay about this, just wanted to share my feelings & confusion about this. And I agree with you on boredom being cultural and artificial.
"Do you like me more than you don't like me or do you not like me more than you do?"
Please do not watch it! It is not for everyone to watch. Tarkovsky was making his films for the cultural elite, 99% of all the regular movie-goers could not understand or accept his movies. Watching his movies is like tasting the most expensive wine in the world - you have to be a connoisseur to actually understand all the overtones. Another comparison: Advanced level Mathematics is not for everyone. Understanding his movies are almost like taking an emotional IQ test for the Gifted and Talented program. Tarkovsky is very good at getting you to think and feel. Solaris is one of his movies where a viewer has to work hard on searching for the answers. It is deeply emotional work that leaves your soul covered in scars yet you feel happy because true happiness can be only found through suffering.
Please understand, I am not saying that if you do not understand him, you are dumb - not at all. For example, I do not understand paintings of Malevich and, as a result, cannot enjoy them. I am just not ready for them yet (who knows, maybe I will never be).
Is Solaris a dull movie? No, but it is not for an average guy. And it is totally okay to be an average guy, nothing wrong with it. Watch something you really enjoy.
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