Solaris

Rating:
Summary: Una agradable sorpresa
Review: Soy un amante de las películas en las cuales el casting, la fotografía, las actuaciones, la música, la dirección, etc. forman un todo en armonía que le agrega valor a la película. Solaris, es para mi, una agradable sorpresa. Según las críticas que había escuchado por ahí, era una película más del montón, así que cuando la vi, no tenía grandes expectativas. Pero tuve la oportunidad de juzgar por cuenta propia, y tengo que decir que resultó de esas en las que uno se prende de tal modo en la trama, que cuando termina se queda con ganas de ver más. Y como broche de oro, me encanta esta película en cuanto a que deja muchas preguntas a criterio del espectador:"Muchas preguntas y pocas respuestas" Como dijo alguna vez el Capitán Jean-Luc Picard. Mejor no podía ser. Creo que va a entrar en mi lista de películas que las veo una y otra vez.

Rating:
Summary: Not good
Review: The movie differs way too much from the book, some things are not explained enough, others are just plain ommited. Also, where did the director get the idea of changing one of the characters. This change makes me wonder if he read the book at all, or whether he just skimmed through it during his limo ride to the studio.

Rating:
Summary: Risks are welcome but failures are noticed
Review: There's no reason why more than one strong movie version of Solaris can't exist. But they don't.

I looked forward to this version. The web site was well-done: I wonder if the budget for the web site exceeded Tarkovsky's budget for his entire movie (in the same currency and adjusted to today).

I had seen Tarkovksy's version about 5 times. I had not read Lem's novel. I didn't mind Tarkovsky''s pace but I was intrigued to see what I had heard would be a more stream-lined movie. I was surprised to find that Soderbergh's version, although an hour shorter, was painful to sit thru. The final half hour I found excruciating. Oddly, despite all the modern special effects, Tarkovsky's version towers over this one in the imaginativeness of the space station and the ocean.

Soderbergh's Solaris is one of the worst movies I've seen. Bad casting, poor acting, awful flow, mangled vision: it's the kind of film that makes one appreciate how good a job most filmmakers do. Most films may not interest me, they may not be well-acted, but most seem to have some flow and basic sense. I don't think this one did.

I paid $1 to see this film: it had made its way quickly to a more than half-empty discount theater. Much more than a usual number of viewers walked out early.

If you do want to see this film, first read Lem's novel "Solaris". I did recently and loved it. It makes sense so it may help make up for this lack of sense in Soiderbergh's movie. After reading the book, if you don't like it, I'd still recommend seeing Tartovsky's movie. You may not like it but its visually so compelling that it may realize Lem's vision (and Tarktovsky's) for you. If after experiencing Lem's Solaris and Tarkoveky's Solaris, you're still curious, by all means see Soderbergh's take if it still intigues you. But if you see Soderbergh's Solaris first, you may decide that any Solaris is rubbish and fail to experience what Lem and/or Tarkovsky have in store for you.

Risks are welcome. But having made an awful movie, it would have been better, if not short-term financially then certainly for artistic integrity and even future commerical respect, to have never released this movie. Or at least to have reworked it heavily before releasing it. Not because of how good Lem's work is, not because of how good Tarkovsky's work is, but because if failures, espeically big failures like this one, are not acknowledged and learned from, one is apt to repeat them.

What do I know? Just how much I enjoyed and will continue to enjoy Lem's Solaris and Tarkovsky's Solaris. And what a waste Soderbergh's film was. An insult. Not to have made but to have released. I remained silent about this film, even in spite of how weak it is next to Tarkovsky. But when I read Lem, it's too much.

If you want to understand Solaris, go read the reviews for Lem's book, go read the reviews for Tarkovsky's movie. Don't lose time here. This is a story about the most extraordinary intelligence, but this film seems devoid of intelligence.

Rating:
Summary: thinking outside the box
Review: This film is deeply affecting, poignant and beautiful. It explores themes of death, bereavement, love, religion, and questions our existence as human beings. It has no Hollywood glamour, no huge explosions or fight scenes, no gratuitous sex scenes. It is subtle and moving. If you like a film to engage you on more than a visual, thrill seeking level this is definitely one you should see. It is not a film with any conclusion and it will leave you with something. It is certainly not boring as some other reviews suggest, but of course is not everyone's cup of tea. This is merely my opinion and is only as valid as the rest of these reviews.

Rating:
Summary: horribly perfect
Review: this is more than a science fiction film, this is more than a love story. there is something about this that is so satisfying, soothing even. just the score alone is enough to watch this movie- infact i strongly suggest purchasing the score soundtrack (fall asleep to it on repeat... your dreams will be vivid and calm) but back to the film. wonderful in every way, and of course natascha is as beautiful as ever- i think i feel in love with her more than the movie. see it-buy it-dream it

Rating:
Summary: Flick Not for Many Tastes, but DVD is Film Student's Delight
Review: This review refers to the DVD release of Solaris, the remake. Just a couple of notes from the outset:

(1) This film will not be well-liked by most people. There are a ton of spoilers in most reviews, so I'll try to boil it down for its essence to avoid ruining the unfolding of the movie should you choose to see it: a guy goes to a spaceship where weird things are happening and sees his dead wife. Maybe. That's all you need to know about the plot. The movie, some might think is slow, there's no action, it's a head-tripper, and honestly, had I not read the book before and also seen the magnificent Tarkovsky original, I might not have followed what was going on. As such, while I really enjoyed it, I can't call it either a great film nor one that is likely to appeal to a broad cross-section of movie watchers. There are some heady issues surrounding reality, consciousness, life and death, and if you take them too seriously you'll find yourself snoozing.

It's definitely in Soderbergh's style, and it's been fun watching him skip between genres in recent years, but it's more like "The Limey" and less like "Erin Brockovich" if you want to pin it down. While it's not an indy flick -- in the sense it's expensive and bankrolled and produced in Hollywood fashion -- it feels like a small art film or an indy. And please, god, don't expect "Aliens" or "Titanic" because James Cameron's name is over the credits as Producer.

(2) Both the original book and the Tarkovsky film have much to recommend them, although they also share characteristics of being verbally philosophical and talky which this version most assuredly does not. This version is incredibly tight.

(3) If you're a film student or into the mechanics of film, though, this DVD edition is an utter delight. I can easily see this sequence in a film class curriculum: watch the movie; watch the DVD commentary; read the screenplay; watch the Tarkovsky "original"; read the Lem original source book; write your term paper.

The DVD contains two interesting but not unusual featurettes on the making of the film. It also includes, somewhat unusually, a complete original screenplay (that you have to page through with the fast forward button). And it contains the customary Director's commentary, featuring director Stephen Soderbergh and producer James Cameron bantering about the movie. (In the honest assessment of Sodbergh, the commentary is "Just another version of two white guys sitting around talking.")

The two of them discuss nearly every choice that was made in assembling the movie, from lighting and the use of post-production to CGI and whether to rehearse actors or not and dozens of technical tricks. And the movie itself is sort of like a catalog of techniques and effects. I don't mean to imply it's showing off: it simply uses a huge variety of film techniques to move the story along, and Cameron and Soderbergh discuss in the commentary both what works and what didn't work, what reshoots were required, what processes underlay the film, how the rewrites were done, and so forth -- and do it in a rather entertaining way, to this film fan, at least.

And one of the things I enjoyed both about the film and the DVD is the way Soderbergh just endlessly pillages other directors and films: Hitchcock, Kubrick, Tarkovsky himself, Eisenstein, heck, even the Lumiere brothers -- even a dash of James Cameron. As Cameron himself says at the end of the commentary, "There are no new ideas. We're a hundred years into the process of filmmaking now."

As such, while I enjoyed watching the movie, I rather much more enjoyed immediately re-viewing it with the commentary, and I think this is going to be a keeper for those who like studying technical details. It's like "Citizen Kane" in that it comes close to summarizing what the 21st century film-maker has at his or her fingertips (the way "Kane" slopped together virtually every technique of 1941 -- rest assured I'm not actually comparing the film's stature to Kane.) There's a bit of what Soderberg immodestly calls "pure cinema", visual-only story-telling, which does remind me of "The Limey" and some of the silent classics as well as "2001" and the original "Solaris", and I mean that all in a complimentary sense.

It's also a huge genre-bender. There are elements of slasher flicks, ghost stories, horror, detective mystery, romantic tragedies, a very slight dash of comedy (thanks largely to the great Jeremey Davies in a supporting role), Soviet agitprop, Godard nouvelle vague, 1930s theatre, and who knows what else I missed the first couple of times I saw it.

This is not a flick you're going to want to pick out for Saturday night brain candy, or to change your mood if you're depressed, because it will either bore you or depress you more if you want mood-altering fluff. But it's a good one-timer for those who like the brain-bending what-is-reality film along the lines of Philip K. Dick or Alejandro Almenabar, and a multi-viewer for film school.

Rating:
Summary: Thoughtful but creepy
Review: Visualy and auditorily stunning and artful, but a bit scarey. It's a psychological thriller as well as a love story, scarier than 2001, and it contains blood, corpses and psychosis. Worth watching though, and not gorey, but one fears to see gore at any moment in the tense bits. It also contains nudity. It leaves you thinking with a very interesting ending. Excellent performances, but not for everyone.

Rating:
Summary: What if you had a second chance?
Review: We are all haunted by ghosts from our past - memories of people whom we've deeply bonded but fate - or our own unthinking actions, takes them forever from us. Such ghosts harbor a special meaning to the small crew aboard a vessel deep in space. A psychologist, haunted by guilt and loss over his wife's suicide, is called to investigate a space probe studying a phenomenon, Solaris, light years from earth. He enters the space craft to find its small crew on the verge of sanity and soon learns the cause of their maladies. Solaris has to the ability to use subatomic matter to reconstruct faxcimilies of loved ones from your dreams. What if you were given a second chance?

Steven Soderstrom executed this difficult material brilliantly. It's a cerebral, intimate psychological drama that has a haunting dream-like quality. It's moody but never boring. Provocative and stylish but not heavy handed. It asks difficult philosophical questions but is never inaccessable; deeply moving without being saccarine. This is the third attempt to bring the challenging Russian novel by Stanislaw Lem to the screen, and it's fantatic. I rented this on a whim with 2 other films and watched Solaris several times instead of the other films.

An a-typical hollywood film and labor of love from an excellent filmmaker. It's a minor classic. The performances and visuals are excellent. Give its far-fetched premise some latitde, and watch without distraction -lights out, late on a rainy night.