First Look ’24: Solaris Mon Amour

Cineastes sometimes forget Tarkovsky’s Solaris was not the first adaptation of the Stanislaw Lem novel. It certainly wasn’t Soderbergh’s either. In 1968 there was an early Russian film released, often referred to as Solyaris. Even before that, there were Polish radio productions in 1962 and 1970, each predating Tarkovsky and Soderbergh. Filmmaker Kuba Mikurda samples audio from both Polskie Radio plays in this hybrid documentary that in a very abstract way also condenses the themes and story of Lem’s novel in Solaris Mon Amour, which screens during this year’s First Look.

For those who know the book (which Lem started writing in 1959, the same year Resnais’s Hiroshima Mon Amour was released, so there you go) and films, Mikurda’s audio excerpts are readily identifiable as Solaris-ian. The images are culled from vintage 1960s Polish industrial and educational science films that have nothing to do with Lem, but marry-up rather aptly with the audio passages. Scenes of protozoa and microscopic cell structures fittingly match discussion of the sentient “sea” on planet Solaris, while protagonist Kris Kelvin’s alienation is nicely represented by star fields and remote figures traversing alien-looking terrain, or the like.

As a result, Solaris Mon Amour sort of is Solaris, but you need to know some of the various Solarises to fill in the gaps. Ironically, that now makes Tarkovsky’s Solaris one of the more “accessible” versions.

This is an interesting film, but science fiction viewers who rarely dig much deeper than Star Wars or The Matrix might get as much from reading a synopsis and watching a trailer than bewilderedly sitting through the entire film. It is a manageable 47 minutes, but Mikuurda and co-screenwriters Marcin Lenarczyk and Laura Pawela (who also edits) embrace a highly experimental aesthetic. Nonetheless, they had a keen eye for visuals that resonate for brainy sf patrons.

Hearing snippets from the ’62 and ’70 radio plays will leave real fans intrigued to hear and somehow see more. It would be cool if they were animated, like the Doctor Who restorations. Arguably, Solaris Mon Amour is far more relatable than your average avant-garde work of inscrutableness. Recommended for admirers of Lem and experimental filmmaking, Solaris Mon Amour screens Friday (3/15), as part of this year’s First Look.