This film would probably be out of print if it was not selected for the Criterion Edition treatment. They cleaned up the old print as usual and added a whole 'nother disk of extras. You need the commentary to try and understand what is happening in this slow moving and deep analysis of humanity, aliens, the future, bureaucracy and more!

Don't look for special effects in this Russian language film constrained by money and the communist agenda. Look for great camera work and tough acting where emotions flow freely but are controlled and constrained.
This movie will keep you talking for days. Billed as the Russian 2001 at the time, as the commentaries point out, they were trying to make the exact opposite actually.

Lil' Sara should see this film, maybe her opinions about the 'evil Russian terroristas ' of gulag, block housing, vodka drunks and all other stereotypes that the crazylouco wing of terrans residing within the USA borders hold dear to their hearts can be dismissed.

What I mean to say, the typical USian can see quite a bit of the rural and urban landscape BEFORE being jettisoned to 'outer space', and realise once again, in the gentlest of terms to those of parochial and provincial manner...welcom to the world! (and then, go, OUT of this world, haha!)

Exquisitely filmed, with the already -described ayhuasca trip feel, this film quite slow paced , so much that it may cause physical discomfort to many who adhere to the hyper-paced day to day .

Moody, well acted, and, thanks for the DVD format, can be viewed either to one sit down, or to watch in manageable segments for those with the short attention span.

I have not seen the USA version (with the marquee actor George Clooney), as I can only imagine there would be no way to capture the magic of this film in the Hollywood idioma. (I already have seen the abject failures of Hollywood to remake two of my favourite films, "El Hombre Mirando al Sudeste" (becomes K Pax) and Insomnia (Al Pacino a great actor, but Skellan Skaarsgaard owned the film!).

Well worth to add to a film collection, enjoy! OH, and did I mention, the actress whose character is the "replacement wife" Hari, she is one of the most beautiful women I have seen in 52 yrs I've been on terra!

¡ la mama !

A final note, and very strange, the fascinating and "suprising" end of the film comes rather abruptly, which is funny funny as the film itself is so long, he holds the camera to a scene so long at times, the image might go permanently engraved in one's mind, hahaha!

1000 estrelas no ceu! Sara Palin doesnt have to go out of doors to see "Russia", here is a fine example of excelente Russian cinema!

Tarkovsky's SOLARIS got a bit of a resurgance in popularity, due no doubt to the remake of the film with George Clooney. The "Hollywood USA" Solaris, when compared to the "USSR" SOLYARIS, tells more about the contrast between the American way of seeing the world, including cinema, and the Russian Weltanschauung. With Hollywood SOLARIS, you have a very linear plot, lots of emotional development between Chris and his wife, including Gabarian, during the initial earth scenes, wierd plot twists and characters revelations at the space station, and obvious big budget sets, costumes, and effects, all given over to an emotionally unsatisfying ending. It is only with the USSR SOLYARIS, that you recieve ART CINEMA (Grand Jury Award at the Canne).

SOLYARIS gets compaired to 2001 A SPACE ODYSSEY all the time. About the only thing they DO have in common, is the idea that space travel occurs in the MIND, as well as the body. The other unity between the two SCIFI masterpieces, are that space travel seems to break apart the psyche of the traveler, who contacts in ANY way alien intelligence. Kubricks 2001 doesnt make as many philosophical discriptions during the film, as SOLARIS does. For me, this is a minor flaw in SOLARIS. Tarkovsky's film ends with this musing, about mankinds purpose, the existence of deity, what it means to be "human", and if it IS possible to return to Earth, after experiencing something as life altering as direct contact with Alien intelligence. Kubrick's film accomplishes the same thing, but silently, more effectively. For the most part, Tarkovsky lets his imagery move the poetic underpining of his films, but he loves to stick in little bits about how mankind is doomed by his greed, and neurotic need to have his (materialistic) dreams all realized. Most people find the beginning of SOLYARIS, at the Dacha, a bit boring, (just like 2001's MONKEY scenes) it helps to set the visual pace of the film, the visual poetry. The long shots of the pond in the beginning of SOLARIS, actually makes sense, if you see how it connects to the end of the film, when the POND becomes just another creation of SOLARIS, itself a larger planetary ocean, set in the ocean of the universe.

Tarkovsky is a poet with imagery, as his father was a poet with words. The one element that always makes me realize the depth of Tarkovsky's work, is the disunity that the critics, and the audience, have over WHAT DOES IT MEAN? Especially in "space ship" type SCIFI, the meaning tends to be very cut and polished. Its only with Kubrick's 2001, made in 1966, that ambiguity seems to enter the genre. It left the genre 6 years later, when Tarkovsky made SOLARIS. Both films are about aliens exploring the human mind, reflecting the "psychedelic" travels of those mind explorers during the 1960s and 70s who used LSD for the same purpose. Therefore, a film where PURE MINDSTUFF, invisible pure being, is one of the central characters, just doesnt seem to want to connect with people today. SOLYARIS, like the MONOLITH, represents humanity's possibilities, their limits, and the concept that REALITY is so much MORE than our preception of REALITY. We make our own realities, and that IS SPACE TRAVEL, of the purest type. This might be why The "HOLLYWOOD" Solaris is more easily digestable. It has no bizarre, circular ending, no low budget sets that need the viewer to invest their own imagination, to make the various roundish rooms on the first SOLARIS turn into a circular space station. The USSR SOLARIS doesnt give you time to consider what might be WRONG with the set logically. Instead, your mind is occupied with intellectual, and emotional concerns. SOLARIS Hollywood style, has it all in place, logical, tight, every hole filled in with the characters, the scenery, and even the CONCEPT of alien intelligence. When ambiguity is removed for rationist reasons, the poetry is removed as well.

The same people that HATE Kubricks 2001, will NOT enjoy the USSR version of SOLARIS. If you dont like to ruminate over the films meaning, by having "breathing space" in the plot, then you wont like the USSR SOLARIS. This is how Tarkovsky makes films. His films use SPACE, for instnace a film shot where NOTHING is happening, or at most, water moves, to allow the viewer to sense a journey, either thru distance, or thru time. (Not unlike the long sections of lights, after Dave enters the Jupiter monolith, and moves thru space and time, for 10 minutes of light shows, that has no plot device, other than MIND TRAVEL is SPACE TRAVEL.) Without all the costly, realistic sets, costumes, etc, its easy to forget that SOLARIS even takes place at a distant planet. Everything looks so EARTHLY, that you forget about the SCIFI theme, and just accept that this altered reality that the people on the SOLARIS Space station experience, is as real as the earthly reality. You accept the delusion, that Chris accepts. Kubrick's 2001 never allows you to forget for a MOMENT, when his film is happening in space, which is the real, and the illusions of the MONOLITH. Maybe that difference is the REAL reason that SOLARIS makes us uncomfortable. Its because it makes us question the very substance of our EARTHLY perception of reality, by the end of the film.

In both films, the main characters become transformed, and overtaken, by the alien intelligence. Both films are a total trip, a trip to the far reaches of the mind. Same destination, different roads. The difference between the two films, is like the difference between cosmonauts and astronauts. In the late 60s and early 70s, that difference was so much greater than it is today. The HOLLYWOOD "SOLARIS", and "2010 The year we make contact", shows how our society today wants it ALL to have a tight, logical ending. No ambiguity, no inner space travel, its all been given over to large budget sets, and big name starts. For the same reason ASTRONAUTS will probibly never land on the moon again, we will never see COSMONAUTS go to the USSR SOLARIS, or ASTRONAUTS enter another monolith. The great age of imagination and exploring inner realities, has been given over to the external, concise reality of COMPUTER GRAPHICS, which give us anything our imagination could EVER produce. (but a machine can do better, or so we believe.) When the imagination becomes superfluous, and ambiguity becomes boring, then its just POPCORN FILMS from here to the edge of the universe.

The director is brilliant, and works with a brilliant cast. Thanks to the great Stanislaw Lem for writing this story.

Dull, ponderous, pretentious, and visually unappealing to boot.

Read the book. It's shorter than many of the five-star reviews here. Effusive praise can't conceal the fact that Lem was a far better writer than Tarakovski was a director.