A dying man in his forties remembers his past. His childhood, his mother, the war, personal moments and things that tell of the recent history of all the Russian nation.
In WW2, twelve year old Soviet orphan Ivan Bondarev works for the Soviet army as a scout behind the German lines and strikes a friendship with three sympathetic Soviet officers.
Directors:
Andrei Tarkovsky,
Eduard Abalov
Stars:
Nikolay Burlyaev,
Valentin Zubkov,
Evgeniy Zharikov
Seven year old Sasha practices violin every day to satisfy the ambition of his parents. Already withdrawn as a result of his routines, Sasha quickly regains confidence when he accidentally ... See full summary »
Director:
Andrei Tarkovsky
Stars:
Igor Fomchenko,
Vladimir Zamanskiy,
Natalya Arkhangelskaya
The Solaris mission has established a base on a planet that appears to host some kind of intelligence, but the details are hazy and very secret. After the mysterious demise of one of the three scientists on the base, the main character is sent out to replace him. He finds the station run-down and the two remaining scientists cold and secretive. When he also encounters his wife who has been dead for ten years, he begins to appreciate the baffling nature of the alien intelligence.Written by
Dan Ellis
Let us take you with us to Solaris, planet of mystery, embodiment of man's latent conflict with the unknown. Man, face to face with his conscience, and with his past.
Included among the "1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die", edited by Steven Schneider. See more »
Goofs
In the weightless scene, in addition to the candle flames behaving as if they were in Earth's gravity, Khari's dress and hair fall downwards, rather than floating upward. See more »
Quotes
Kris Kelvin:
Get some sleep.
Hari:
I don't know how to sleep. It's not sleep, it's somehow around me. It's as if it wasn't just inside me, but much farther away.
See more »
Alternate Versions
The surviving print of the longer first cut is kept in Russian State Film Archives - Gosfilmofond near Moscow. It is longer by some 20 minutes. 9 deleted and alternative scenes are included on Criterion Collection DVD release of the film. See more »
It's now been some years since I last watched it. Still, I can't get rid of the impressions of emptiness, absurdity and impossibility to understand (the world, and the human mind) that this movie left into me. It can be violent to your mind, without showing a single violent image (by the way, I often see this movie as a counterpart to Clockwork Orange, even more than to 2001). It can stun you, with ten or twenty minutes of incomprehensible silence. It can deprive you of any certainty in the laws of nature - such as, people only die once - and thus leave you vulnerable and naked.
I know that many friends to whom I've shown this move did not understand it. So I'm not saying you'll like it. But this is possibly the best (non-action) sci-fi movie ever made.
Watch it at night, alone, when everything out of your home is dark, silent, and cold.
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It's now been some years since I last watched it. Still, I can't get rid of the impressions of emptiness, absurdity and impossibility to understand (the world, and the human mind) that this movie left into me. It can be violent to your mind, without showing a single violent image (by the way, I often see this movie as a counterpart to Clockwork Orange, even more than to 2001). It can stun you, with ten or twenty minutes of incomprehensible silence. It can deprive you of any certainty in the laws of nature - such as, people only die once - and thus leave you vulnerable and naked.
I know that many friends to whom I've shown this move did not understand it. So I'm not saying you'll like it. But this is possibly the best (non-action) sci-fi movie ever made.
Watch it at night, alone, when everything out of your home is dark, silent, and cold.