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Solyaris aka Solaris

Director: Tarkovsky, U.S.S.R., 1972 35mm 167 min.

Based on a novel by the noted Polish writer Stanislaw Lem, Tarkovsky's Solaris is often described as the Soviet 2001; the late Jay Scott of The Globe & Mail once called it Star Trek as written by Dostoevsky. The film's plot has a troubled, guilt-ridden scientist sent to investigate strange occurrences on a space station orbiting Solaris, a mysterious planet with an intelligent Ocean capable of penetrating the deepest recesses of the subconscious. Confronted on his arrival by the incarnation of a long-dead lover, the protagonist is forced to relive the greatest moral failures of his past. Solaris is magnificently mounted in widescreen and colour, and offers a fascinating, felicitous marriage between Tarkovsky's characteristic moral/metaphysical concerns and the popular format of science fiction. Solaris ranks with the best of Tarkovsky's work, which is to say it ranks with the best movies produced at any time Jay Scott.