journal features

movie review - Solaris

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-eight years and a million words

Toronto, 2002.12.08

This is a sci-fi flick about a psychologist who is called to a distant space research centre to get to the bottom of some recent events. Things have gone very strange on the centre that orbits what may be a (bizarre) planet (ie, "Solaris"). When he (George Clooney) gets there, he learns all about the source of the strangeness indeed.

It's a pretty heady movie. I saw this with a Japanese girl who is fairly new to English, and she had plenty of questions when we emerged. I've been using English essentially exclusively for almost 32 years, and I didn't have all the answers. In any event, a beautifully filmed movie and certainly an original plot (though this is the second filmed interpretation of the book by the same title) and some nasty concepts. I quite enjoyed it and recommend it to anyone who's willing to wait for its pacing; it's worth the wait.

Recommended.

rand()m quote

In the wake of 9/11, we [in America] have made the decision as a society that we can never again create something in which we can take pride, for fear that someone will destroy it. Moreover, we must suppress any trace of individualism, lest someone have the desire to rise above the bland sameness that protects us. I have, alas, no idea how to recapture our courage.

—Anonymous post to boingboing.net, 2009