Don’t
call it a remake. Supposedly, Steven Soderbergh was reinterpreting Stanisław
Lem’s source novel rather than fiddling with Tarkovsky’s classic. Okay, so
where’s Dr. Sartorius and the study of Solaristics? Arguably, this is the
least faithful of the three film adaptations, but it still shares thematic
kinships with its predecessors. No matter what you call it, following in
Tarkovsky’s footsteps is a perilous proposition, so you have to give Soderbergh
credit for creating a distinctive Solaris
(trailer
here) of his own, which also screens during the Stanisław Lem on Film series at
Anthology Film Archives.
This
time around, the fact that Dr. Chris (no longer with a “K”) Kelvin is a
psychologist who has been unable to process the guilt and grief stemming from
his wife’s suicide takes on tremendous significance, quite logically enough. He
is rather surprised when representatives of the DBA corporation (including a
blurry John Cho, in the one sf role he is probably never asked about at cons)
recruits him to assess the state of moral at the Solaris space station. It
turns out, he was requested by his old friend Gibrarian, who apparently committed
suicide shortly before his arrival.
The
two surviving crewmembers, Dr. Snow and Dr. Gordon are both acting
suspiciously. The latter has become a paranoid recluse who rarely leaves her
quarters, whereas the former is twitchier than Meryl Streep playing Dracula’s fly-eating Renfield. He soon
learns the crew have been visited by apparently flesh-and-blood constructs
generated by the sentient planet from the darkest corners of the subject’s
subconscious. In Kelvin’s case, it is his late wife Rheya. At first, his “visitor”
freaks him out, but then he desperately grasps at this unlikely second chance.
So
yes, this is Solaris, except
Soderbergh throws in an incidental plot twist that largely parallels the big
reveal in Professor Zazul. In some
ways, he appears to deliberately evoke the Tarkovsky classic, starting with the
nearly continual rain during the early Earth-bound scenes. This is also the
steamiest Solaris yet. Indeed,
Soderbergh is much more interested in the relationship between the husband and
wife and Kelvin’s subsequent guilt-tripping. His affinity for vintage 1970s
cinema stands him in good stead, in this respect. It is a bit of an
exaggeration, but a tag-line like: “in space, love means never having to say
you’re sorry” would not be wholly inappropriate.
Probably
best known for Spy Kids 3 and Return to Horror High, George Clooney
actually slow burns quite effectively as Kelvin. He always looks torn up inside
(and it literally seems like he walks under a constant rain cloud while on
Earth). Natascha McElhone poignantly portrays the various Rheyas, especially
the visitor incarnation’s coming to terms with her debatable human status.
Unfortunately, the 2002 Solaris really
suffers when comparing its Snow to previous Dr. Snauts (translations vary).
Jeremy Davies basically hits the same almost shticky note over and over as
Snow, whereas both Vladimir Etush and Jüri Järvet added complexity and heft to
their respective 1968 and 1972 adaptations. Viola Davis hardly registers as Dr.
Gordon, the Sartorius substitute, but that is still an advantage over the ’68 Russian
TV production.
