Solaris

I’ve been watching Tarkovsky’s Solaris for the umpteenth time on my Criterion dvd, but it’s the first time that I’ve listened to the commentary track (on this or any dvd). I’ve suffered it for 1 hour 19 minutes, but no more. I don’t think I could disagree much more with the two commentators’ perspectives. Worst of all was the description of the city driving sequence as the overly long result of the director having no budget. This has to be one of my favourite scenes (among many in this film). Brilliantly soundtracked by Eduard Artemyev, it holds up a mirror to the world Kris is about to depart and reveals it to be as alien and ultimately puzzling a construction as that of Solaris, the world he is to travel to. It does this in a meditative way that gradually builds a sense both of unbearable tension and loneliness. To compare it unfavourably to the “balletic movement” of Kubrick’s 2001 is to miss the point entirely.