Solaris

On the planet Solaris, scientists believe, the ocean’s surface has an intelligence that can absorb human memory and materialize the objects of our thoughts. Psychologist Chris Kelvin joins the veteran cosmonauts in the Solaris project only to find them maddened from years of cohabitating with their unconscious desires. “Outer space” plays almost no part in Andrei Tarkovsky’s science fiction, which relies on widescreen composition to paint a landscape of the mind. Tarkovsky initiates us into the secret of Solaris: like the oceans of the distant planet, the cinema serves up the most poetic longings of the human imagination.