‘What can I meet here, a ghost?’
A scientist is sent to the research station orbiting the planet Solaris. When he arrives, he finds the small crew acting strangely and soon realises they are no longer alone…
This small screen adaptation of Stanislaw Lem’s famous science fiction novel was made for Soviet television four years before director Andrei Tarkovsky delivered his celebrated film version. This black-and-white production was directed by Lidiya Ishimbaeva and Boris Nirenburg and was transmitted over two consecutive evenings in the winter of 1968.
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It is many years since the discovery of the planet Solaris and its sentient ocean of plasma. However, its secrets have eluded the scientific teams allocated to the orbiting research station, and only a skeleton crew remains. When their communications become sporadic, scientist Kris Kelvin (Vasiliy Lanovoy) is assigned to the station to evaluate its possible future. When he arrives, he finds that his old friend, Gibaryan, who was the head of the current team, has committed suicide. Crewman Snaut (Vladimir Etush) appears paranoid and vague and the only other remaining scientist, Sartorius (Viktor Zozulin), has barricaded himself in his laboratory and refuses to come out.
After his first night on the station, Lanovoy wakes to find that he has unexpected company in the form of his ex-wife Hari (Antonina Pilyus). She seems a little bewildered to be there, and no wonder she’s been dead for several years. Freaked out, he shoots her into space in an escape capsule. Etush confirms that all of the crew have experienced similar visitations and that Pilyus will return the next time he wakes. The phenomenon began after they swept the ocean with X-rays in an effort to provoke communication with the planet. These creatures are the creations of Solaris, although the motivation behind their appearance remains obscure. When Pilyus returns, Lanovoy finds himself falling in love with her.
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Stanislaw Lem’s philosophical examination on the nature of humanity in the face of the last frontier made an immediate impact on its publication in 1961. Within two years, an adaptation was staged for national public service radio in his native Poland, but the first screen version arrived via Soviet television. Running around two hours and twenty minutes, the script by Nikolay Kemarskiy is actually the closest version so far to the original novel, although this may have been the result of the financial limitations of the production. In fact, these may have prompted the decision to adapt Lem’s novel in the first place, as certain aspects of the work lend themselves to a stripped-down, minimalist approach.
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If it seems a little unfair to focus on how the budgetary issues affect the finished production, it’s hard to start elsewhere as they are so integral to the finished result. There are no SFX to speak of, with all the limited spaceship action conveyed via footage of actual rocket launches. Similarly, there are no shots of the planet, and almost the entire drama takes place in the station’s small cabins and cramped corridors. The only other area that appears on screen is the one adjacent to the launch dock, and these metal stairways were likely a real-life location such as a factory or an industrial plant. What technology we do see is inevitably very dated, of course, with the shuttle guiding Kelvin’s capsule coming complete with lots of levers and a physical clock on the instrument panel.
Given these very obvious limitations, the focus falls entirely on the interactions of the small cast and the script, and, despite the length of proceedings, these are strong enough to retain audience investment. Although the film is faithful to its source material, the developing love affair between Pilyus and Lanovoy is emphasised, something original author Lem disapproved of in the later Tarkovsky version. However, it’s hard to see how that could be avoided without letting the story lapse into a somewhat dry and academic exercise. The human element in the book is mainly supplied by Kelvin’s first-person narration, which is impossible to present effectively in a visual medium. However, Kemarskiy has managed to retain most of Lem’s major themes and is smart enough to allow the audience to consider them without too much prompting.
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Individual scenes are presented in long, single takes, with camera movement mainly taking the place of cutting. This may have been a production necessity, but it gives the feel of a live broadcast, highlighted by the wordless transitional sequences, which could have been pre-filmed to allow the actors time to prepare for the following setup. There’s no other evidence to support this notion, but the finished article definitely resembles BBC productions filmed that way, such as episodes of the early ‘Quatermass’ and ‘Dr Who’ serials. Tarkovsky also employed long takes in his 1972 version, but that was almost certainly an artistic choice as it’s a signature of much of his work.
If it was a live broadcast, it’s fortunate that the small ensemble of actors is word-perfect and the production has no obvious issues. Pilyus gives the most noteworthy performance, although it’s likely to be a little divisive. Somewhat ironically, her Hari has a child-like innocence and appeal, which brings human warmth to the drama, a quality largely absent from the other characters. However, it could be argued that this isn’t consistent with either her existence as a creation of Solaris or what we know of the original woman who committed suicide when Kelvin ended their relationship. There’s a certain innate dignity to her performance, though, which tips the scales in Pilyus’ favour.
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Although Lem is best known for ‘Solaris’, the author’s work has reached the screen on several other occasions. The first was as early as 1960, with the East German-Polish co-production of his novel ‘The Astronauts’ which reached U.S. audiences as the heavily edited ‘First Spaceship on Venus’ in 1962, although is best viewed in its original form as ‘Der schweigende Stern’ (1960). A far better example was the Czechoslovak production ‘Ikarie XB1’ (1963), which was also cut to pieces for its stateside release as ‘Voyage to the End of the Universe.’ His short stories concerning spaceman Pilot Pirx were adapted into the interesting if a little disappointing, ‘Test Pilot Pirxa/Pilot Pirx’s Inquest (1979). In more recent years, Robin Wright and Harvey Keitel starred in the ambitious but uneven drama, ‘The Congress’ (2013), which was taken from one of his novels.
Given the limited resources, this is a solid attempt with some merit.