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Solaris is a 2002 science fiction-psychological drama written and directed by Steven Soderbergh. Starring George Clooney and Natascha McElhone. Steven Soderbergh's Solaris is a second adaptation of Stanislaw Lem's SF classic, sadly largely dismissed and ignored as an inferior and “shallow Hollywood“ remake of Andrei Tarkovsky's 1972 adaptation. In my opinion, both adaptations are superior to the novel (interesting that Lem disliked both adaptations), and each adaptation comes with its own unique strengths and insights into human nature. Definitely an excellent and valuable movie experience not to be missed, together with Tarkovsky's version. The majority of the movie takes place on a space station orbiting a sentient planet, which manifests/communicates by materializing individuals from the minds of the space station crew. After the company financing the project losses contact with the space station, they persuade Dr. Chris Kelvin (played by George Clooney) to travel to Solaris, because stationed there happens to be his scientist friend Dr. Gibarian. Dr. Gibarian also sent a distressing message inviting him to come, which is shown to Kelvin by the company people. Finally, previous attempts to retrieve the crew failed. After arriving on the station Kelvin finds Dr. Gibarian dead and soon learns the nature of Solaris when Solaris materializes his dead wife Rheya. What follows are deep psychological struggles of dealing with such replicas of loved ones, as well as attempts to illuminate Solaris intentions. In this specific scene Kelvin is visited by a replica of Gibarian (or he just dreams of it), who begins the dialogue with a disturbingly commanding voice of maybe Solaris itself, giving an eerie atmosphere to the conversation. I love how this scene is written leaving the viewer in doubt about the whole reality of the event, as well as of the participants, in the same time providing important plot information. In the second half of the conversation Gibarian is the sound of reason, arguing on the futility of communication with Solaris, imploring Kelvin to leave, while Kelvin caves to emotions, and persists in staying and finding a solution to events one single human can't possibly deal with. IMDB entry: FAIR USE STATEMENT: This clip is used in research and education (history/analysis of movie scenes with significant insight into condition of man). No citation here of work by others constitutes any infringement of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. This clip conforms to all criteria determining the fair and/or scholarly use of citation according to U.S. Federal Law (Sections 107-118 of the Copyright Act; title 17, U.S. Code).
