By Paul Johnston
On Earth
As with many of his films, the opening section of
Tarkovsky’s Solaris sets the scene for what is to come. Almost inevitably it
starts with water. The camera lingers on a leaf floating down a stream, then on
the weeds and reeds, pulled into movement by the flowing water. Slowly,
insistently, the camera explores the peace and mystery of a world without humans -
until we chance on part of a human figure and the camera pulls up to reveal the
film’s protagonist, Kris Kelvin. This solitary individual may be vaguely aware
of the beauty that surrounds him, but he is unable to draw any sustenance from
it. It’s there, but it can’t help or really touch him. He is trapped in a world
where there are always things to be done, but not much to be gained from doing
them. A black horse trots by, magnificently at home in the world. Kelvin notices
it and moves wearily on. In the distance a car draws up at the house and his
father calls out to him, but Kelvin would rather be alone. And if the rain
pours down on him until he is soaked, what difference does it make? He stands
resolute, brooding emptily on his pain but determined to go on. After all, what
else can he do?
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| Solaris, dir. Andrei Tarkovsky, 1972 |
Kelvin is staying with his father and his aunt and, despite
the civilised atmosphere, it’s tense. He will soon leave on a mission that
probably means he will never see his father again, but it is more than that.
There is a sense of conflict and misunderstandings. Kelvin’s mother is dead and
the house seems haunted by an absence that both father and son must have
struggled with, but which hasn’t brought them together. It’s a large house with
three people who are constantly getting in each other’s way. Everyone seems too
full of his or her own emotions to have time for anyone else’s.
The arrival of
Berton, a friend of the father’s who wants to talk to Kelvin about his mission,
is another unwelcome intrusion. There were already too many people before he
arrived. He brings his young son, who we see shyly and silently meeting the
aunt’s young daughter - at least in this human contact, there is still
something innocent and hopeful. The boy is alarmed when he sees the horse, now
in its stable, but the aunt takes him by the hand and helps him to see that the
horse is a beautiful creature and nothing to be frightened of. Meanwhile Berton
insists on having a one-to-one conversation with Kelvin, but the discussion
quickly goes wrong and Berton storms off, telling the father that, since their
20-year friendship had to end sometime, it might as well end now. The father in
turn lambasts the son, saying that he shouldn’t be allowed into space because things
out there are too fragile. The earth has adapted to people like him at a price,
but they shouldn’t be allowed anywhere else. The tentative efforts of father
and son to reach out to each other collapse.
Berton’s Unnerving Experience.
Kelvin’s mission is to the
planet Solaris and Berton visits him because he had an experience on that
planet that he has never recovered from. Solaris is a paradox and an irritation
- it is possible the planet may harbour some form of super-intelligence, but
years of research have not been able to get beyond the initial promising but
confusing signs. Has humanity finally come into contact with another intelligent
form of life or is Solaris just another nondescript planet among countless
others? Berton worked on the research station as a pilot and when an aircraft
containing two scientists went missing, he was part of the search and rescue
mission. His craft got separated from the others and he was sucked into a
strange, swirling fog above the planet’s ocean. When he returned, he was in a
state of shock and ran to his cabin, frightened at the idea of going outside
the space station and terrified even to look out of a porthole.
Some time later
when he had partially recovered, he insisted on making a formal statement about
a discovery that he believes will change the future of the whole Solaris
research project. Dressed in his military uniform and just about holding it
together, he describes how, when he was sucked down into the fog, the surface
of the ocean began to change and then formed itself into something that looked
like a garden. The assembled scientists are shocked - it’s a big claim, but a
weirdly senseless one: what would a garden be doing on the surface of a planet
millions of miles from Earth? Berton appeals to the evidence of his video
camera, which recorded everything he saw - except it didn’t; the film just
shows clouds. Now it is Berton who is confused - did he really experience what
he thought he experienced? To a sceptical audience and increasingly agitated,
he continues his account. The garden was only the start. Shortly, after he saw
a human figure, moving and being moved on the ever-changing ocean. But there
was something horrible about the figure. It had no helmet or space suit - in
fact, it was a child, a baby and huge, gigantic - something like four metres
tall. And naked, absolutely naked, but with a horrible, sticky liquid,
glistening all over its body. It was an image of human vulnerability turned
into something horribly alien, which wasn’t dead but which also wasn’t fully
alive.
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| Solaris, dir, Andrei Tarkovsky, 1972 |
Berton can’t cope with his experience, but neither can his
audience. The majority conclusion is that, despite all his years of service and
his professional discipline, Berton had a hallucination. His experience had no
(or virtually no) relation to reality and so has no implications for research
into the nature of the planet. Berton’s pathetic protests that he saw it all
with his own eyes cut no ice - after all, haven’t we all mistaken a bush for an
animal when it is dark and we are tired? Berton should just put everything
behind him and move on - nothing or virtually nothing happened and it is
certainly not worth thinking or worrying about. Ironically (or perhaps
predictably) Berton’s discussion with Kelvin follows the same pattern - Berton
feels he has something very important to say, his attempt to explain gets
interrupted and the conclusion is that probably nothing happened, and even if it did, it does not have any significance and
won’t affect the plans of the people who count. The reality of Berton’s
experience - the moment that shattered a lifetime of disciplined
professionalism - is denied, derided and discounted. What a ridiculous man!
Actually, he is a generous man. Humiliated (again), and confused and full of
doubt, he doesn’t abandon his mission and, after storming off, makes a video
call to pass on the information he hadn’t succeeded in sharing. After he left
Solaris, he made contact with the family of one of the missing scientists whom he
had been searching for when he got pulled into the fog. The scientist had
separated from his wife shortly before or after the birth of their son, a child
whose features were those of the baby Berton had seen bobbing on the ocean on
Solaris. More Berton nonsense? Perhaps, but Kelvin should bear it in mind when
he gets to the planet.
So what should we, the viewer, make of Berton’s
experience? Later we learnt that the Ocean can project ideas from an
individual’s unconscious, so perhaps the garden and the baby reflect what the
missing scientists were longing for or were worried they would never see again.
But why is this experience so destabilising for Berton? Later, he himself has a
son and, although he is a rather preoccupied father, the boy offers him love
and comfort, which he appreciates. (Interestingly, the mother is again very
absent). In fact, babies and children are wildly out of place in the world of
Solaris research and exploration, and in Berton’s world of technical
proficiency and professional duty. What place in these worlds for vulnerability,
growth and uncertainty? Really there should be no baby, but there is - only
it’s a monster. It hasn’t developed, it has just grown; but growth without
development is a horrible distortion. This is not a baby that warms the heart -
it’s a baby that makes you wish you had never been born. (And why, one might
ask, is that?)
More Unwanted Guests
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| Solaris, dir. Andrei Tarkovsky, 1972 |
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| Solaris, dir. Andrei Tarkovsky, 1972 |
Giberian’s response to his visitor is one extreme - he
accepts the visitation as a judgement, tries to live with it but is unable to
do so. Sartorius goes to the other extreme - he denies the visitors any
significance. They are an irritation, a nuisance, and a trial or rather, since
those words are already too emotional a description, they are a phenomenon that
we must seek to understand and then learn to control. In the face of this
crisis, Sartorius jettisons his humanity and clings to his role as a scientist.
It is not hard to see whose response Tarkovsky has most sympathy with. At
least, Giberian was brave enough and human enough to acknowledge that the
appearance of his visitor raised questions about who he was; and if he could
not unravel those questions in a positive way, at least he confronted them and
make a choice that was real and his, even if despairing.
Snaut handles things
differently from both of his colleagues. He is a man of compromise. He does not
deny his humanity or seek to block out the reality and the meaning of the
visitors; he just tries to find ways to get by. In part, he does this by not
taking things too seriously. He pretends that his visitor’s being there is not
that unusual, and he keeps himself constantly busy in a manic attempt to
distract himself. When he can, he tries to laugh about the situation or see the
irony in it. But his struggle is as desperate as Sartorius’s (or for that
matter, Gibarian’s); and, while the violence of Sartorius’ denial is repulsive,
the pathos of Snaut’s attempt to cope is deeply moving. The man is a wreck and,
although his intelligence and his resilience are impressive, it really doesn’t
look as if he is going to hold out much longer.
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| Solaris, dir. Andrei Tarkovsky, 1972 |
Kelvin, of course, is the one who finds a way through. His
first response to the appearance of his dead wife Hari is Sartorius-like - he
locks her in a rocket and, despite her screams, blasts her into space. But he
is fortunate in who his visitor is - or perhaps the Ocean has finally worked
out how to choose the right visitor. Kelvin is a well-defended man, but he has
one weak spot (or possibly two) - his love for his wife meant something to him
and he can’t quite reconcile himself to throwing it away (just as he can’t
quite draw the line under his love for his lost mother). Kelvin makes a
serious attempt to come to terms with his visitor. That involves taking them both seriously, being open to the pain of experiencing and thinking
about things.
Ironically (and in a way that creates some difficulties for the
viewer), Kelvin is not a very sympathetic character - he is arrogant,
narcissistic and a bit superficial. He is the hero of the film, but he is also
the hardest character to admire. He does work hard on his relationship with
Hari, but it is a struggle for him to admit his feelings for her, and even by
the end of the film he still doesn’t seem to have taken on board the idea that
a relationship involves two people and that you should at least try to see
things from two perspectives rather than just one. So Kelvin and Hari never
make it to a happy relationship - in fact, towards the end they are arguing
just as much ever. But they do have a relationship and Kelvin does acknowledge
both his need for contact and his difficulty in sustaining it. He is a wiser
man at the end of the film - still sad, but able to experience his sadness and
to try to make sense of it, so there is hope and an openness to the possibility
of growth.
The Problem of Hari.
Kelvin’s dead wife Hari (or the Ocean’s
recreation of her) is at the emotional heart of the film. Philosophically, one
might think the big question she raises is: “What makes a living entity a human
being?” or “When should we treat a living entity as human?”, but Tarkovsky is
not very interested in that sort of question. In fact, Hari is the most human
person in the whole film - she certainly serves as a role model for the men as
to what being human does (or could) involve. Sartorius, of course, tells her
that she is nothing - a matrix, a mechanical reproduction of the past. It is a
brutal assault on her vulnerability, and she staggers under the blow; but she
doesn’t take refuge in denial and she stays committed to thinking and feeling -
unlike Sartorius, who smashes his glasses in pain and frustration and wanders
off, muttering unconvincingly about others taking the easy route.
Are we
nothing? And if we are something, can we accept the something we are? The
Ocean’s actions pose these questions to everyone on the space station, and the
person who grapples with them most directly and most honestly is Hari. As a
result, she learns and grows through the film, so that eventually she is much
more than the Hari that was. Her first incarnation is child-like - unfazed by
the strange situation she finds herself in, she accepts the good things it has
to offer and seems to have little sense that anything could go wrong. She
cannot explain her need to be in visual contact with Kelvin at all times, but
she loves him and she trusts him - until he shuts the rocket door and
blasts her screaming into space. Her second incarnation is more knowing and
more painfully aware of her need for Kelvin - when he accidentally shuts
another door on her, she is torn to pieces by her desperate need
for him.
Hari’s search to understand who (or what) she is has a terrible
pathos, which is itself hard to endure. At times - for example, when she
suggests to Kelvin that she may have epilepsy - we risk slipping into
Sartorius-like complacency and forgetting that her situation of not knowing is
not so different from our own. Generally, however, what we experience is
sympathy with her pain and admiration for her willingness to face up to the
truth. At one point Hari finds a picture of herself and only by looking in the
mirror does she recognise who the photo depicts - it’s a heart-rending moment.
We may like to think that “finding ourselves” is an exciting voyage of
discovery, but as Hari’s experience demonstrates, recognising that you don’t know
who you are is a terrifying experience. Instinctively, she turns to Kelvin for
companionship - “Do you know yourself?” she asks, to which his defensive and
not very convincing answer is: “As much as any Man does”.
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| Solaris, dir. Andrei Tarkovsky, 1972 |
Hari’s search for
truth may make her seem like Sartorius, but Sartorius does not want to
understand, he wants to control. In fact, the response of Sartorius (and the
other scientists) to the Ocean shows that it is not knowledge itself that they
want; rather what they cannot cope with is not knowing, not understanding. If
the Ocean is a mystery, an Other that cannot be subsumed into the reassuring
conformity of the known, then it would be better it was destroyed. The Ocean is
not seen as something that we might enter into dialogue with; rather it is a
threat to the idea that Man knows (or one day will know) everything. Science is
supposed to be about going beyond our own limitations and seeing the world
objectively, but in Solaris that search for knowledge does not look very
open-minded; on the contrary, as exemplified in the character of Sartorius, it
looks like a blind and desperate insistence that the only right way to see the
world is the way we humans see it.
By contrast, Hari is open to difference. While the men argue
over which of them is right, she highlights the different way each of them
reacts and sees this as something to accept and to welcome. While Kelvin
strives to live in an impossible (and potentially rather bland) harmony with
her, Hari wants to face up to their differences in the past and their
difficulties in the present. She is also prepared to recognise the wider
context of her relationship with Kelvin and the fact that this can generate
conflict. After seeing a video in which Kelvin’s mother appears, she says, hurt
and confused: “That woman hated me”. Kelvin, of course, wants to sweep
everything under the carpet: “But you never met her”. To which Hari replies:
“Why are you trying to confuse me? I remember perfectly well how we had tea
together. And how she told me to go away”.
The Ocean’s visitors confront Kelvin
and his colleagues with aspects of themselves that they are reluctant to
recognise or have anything to do with. Ironically, Hari faces a similar sort of
issue in relation to her past. As Sartorius’s laboratory tests confirm, she is
not Hari - if you prick her finger to take a “blood” sample, there is no need
(and no point) in giving her cotton wool to staunch the bleeding. So how can
“Hari” relate to Hari? At some points in the film, she relates with hate and
envy - the only way she could be herself would be if she could kill the other
Hari and destroy all trace of her. Later, she seems to come to terms with
her own identity (and her difference), but is haunted by the fear that
Kelvin won't be able to deal with her 'otherness': “I disgust myself. You must
find me disgusting too. You do find me disgusting”, she screams. Part of the
difficulty of real contact with others is that it puts you in contact with
yourself.
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| Solaris, dir Andrei Tarkovsky, 1972 |
Hari has one other problem - she cannot die. Snaut, of course, jokes
about this and talks about Satorius working on the Faustian problem of how to
find a remedy for immortality; but when he is confronted with Hari coming back
to life, he runs away - he cannot stand to watch these pseudo- resurrections.
They make a joke of death and even for Snaut that is a joke too far. Towards
the end of the film, Hari tries to choose suicide, but all she achieves is a
painful death and an even more painful revival. Unlike Giberian’s suicide,
Hari’s suicide attempt seems abrupt - an impulsive suicide of despair. She has
reached a point where she no longer has the strength to go any further. But she
has no choice but to go on. Her suicide would have been less meaningful than
Giberian’s, but her inability to die made the attempt transparently
meaningless. By the end of the film, she does achieve death, and this time it
is a chosen death based on an understanding of who she is and what she wants.
Eventually, Hari dies but she dies with dignity, and it is a better death than
all her previous deaths including the death on Earth of the real Hari.
Coming Home
At the end of the film, as they reflect on all that has
happened, Snaut tells Kelvin that it is time for him to return to Earth. The
question is raised of whether Snaut still has a connection to earth (and so
whether it will ever be time for him to return), but the focus is Kelvin, and
it is clear that he will go back and go back a different man. The theme of
homecoming is highlighted in the meditation on Brueghel’s Return of the Hunters
painting. Interestingly (and appropriately), Hari is first draws our
attention to it. What can a scene of medieval hunters returning to the
warmth of their homes in the depth of winter mean to her?
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| Pieter Bruegel (the Elder) 'The Return of the Hunters/Hunters in the Snow', 1565 |
At the beginning of
the film, Kelvin has no thoughts for his home - insofar as he seems capable of
thinking of anything, it is of his mission and its challenges. Sartorius too
has no time to think of home. He thinks only of expanding the certainties of
human knowledge until the whole universe is swallowed up. He is typically
contemptuous of Giberian’s wish to be buried on Earth - what sense does that
make? Is he missing the worms? But from Tarkovsky’s perspective, it is vital to
have a sense of where you come from. As Hari looks at the picture, she clearly
understands what it is like to come home, although perhaps she feels sad at the
thought that there is nowhere for her to come home to or that her sense of what
it might be like to come home is something she has stolen from someone else
(the “real” Hari).
Kelvin’s sense of where he comes from grows during the film.
He (and the other scientists on Solaris) learn many painful lessons, but being
so far from the Earth also teaches them to love it and to accept their need for
it. Giberian comes up with the idea of tying bits of paper around the
ventilation ducts to create a noise that sounds like the rustling of leaves,
and, while Snaut and Kelvin embrace this simple innovation openly even
Sartorius makes use of it on the quiet. It is a noble thing to go where no Man
has gone before, but it looks more like a flight than a sacrifice if you refuse
to accept the loss this means for you. How can you know whom you are or what
you are doing if you have lost any sense of connection to where you came from?
More positively, Kelvin’s experience of Solaris allows him
to see the Earth and humanity as something that can be loved precisely because
it is something that could be lost. We like to think that in a sense the world
did not exist before we humans became conscious of it; and similarly, it suits
our narcissism to see the Ocean as passive and to focus on our efforts to make
contact with it. But this is a one-sided and defensive perspective. The
unfathomable mystery of Solaris confronts us with a world that does not need
us. Sartorius thinks we must understand the Ocean because it is Man’s destiny
to understand Nature - as if our not understanding Solaris is Solaris’ or the
universe’s problem rather than our own. Kelvin comes to understand that we ourselves
are just a small part of Nature, but that still makes us something precious and
worthy of love.
Sartre said that hell is other people, but he was wrong. Hell
is our difficulty in dealing with our need for other people. This is the slow
and painful journey Kelvin takes. He starts the film an intensely lonely
figure, but his experiences on Solaris force him to confront the reality of his
relationship with Hari. They also bring him back to earlier relationships and
earlier losses. It is hard to know quite what to make of Kelvin’s mother and of
his relationship to her - she is loving and beautiful, but she also seems
slightly cold and distant. Kelvin clearly loved his mother, but while she was
alive, he seems to have resented his need for her and when she died, he seems
to have felt desperately abandoned. After a radiogram of his thoughts have been
transmitted to the Ocean, he falls into a fever and in a strange dream is at
last able to have contact with his mother that goes beyond his anger and
recognises his need, but in a realistic way that his loving and not-too-bad
mother can actually meet.
And then there’s the father. If Kelvin’s relationship
to his mother is troubled, what hope is there for his relationship to his
father? As with his mother, Kelvin has great difficulty acknowledging what his
father means to him or the pain he feels at the distance between them. But,
unlike his colleagues, Kelvin has a chance to go home; and the film ends with
an image of him accepting his father and his father accepting him. So perhaps
life is not just about focussing on your mission and forgetting everything
else, maybe it is about feeling things and growing. Maybe contact with the
Other is possible and bearable after all.
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| Solaris, dir, Andrei Tarkovsky, 1972 |
