I watched Soderbergh’s Solaris again last night to try and get this paper going. I was again captivated by the visuals that seemed to pay homage to Tarkovsky’s love of flow. If Tarkovsky had had access to the latest in CG technology, would he have used it? I also noticed other parallels to the Tarkovsky, like the large video monitors on which the dead seemed to communicate with the living, the dreary cityscape on earth, and several key pieces of dialogue. Yet, this time I was most struck by the the notion of mirrors that ran throughout the film, both thematically and visually.
When Kelvin first arrives on the station, he quickly learns of Gibarian’s death, meets with the remaining crew members — the jittery Snow and the measured and paranoid Gordon (Sartorius in the novel and Tarkovsky film) — and begins his investigation into just what is happening. In an early scene (chapter 8 on the DVD), Kelvin watches a video journal of the dead Gibarian that echoes Tarkovsky’s: “we don’t want other worlds, we want mirrors.” Gordon echoes this sentiment later when she and Kelvin discuss the reality of the “visitors,” particularly the Rheya simulacrum:
GORDON: It is a mistake to become emotionally engaged with one of them. You’re being manipulated. If she were ugly, you would not want her around. That’s why she’s not ugly. She’s a mirror that reflects part of your mind. You provide the formula.
KELVIN: She’s alive.
GORDON: She is not human! Try to understand that if you can understand anything.
KELVIN: What about your visitor, the one you’re so ready to destroy without hesitation. Who is it? What is it? Can it feel? Can it touch? Does it speak?
GORDON: We are in a situation that is beyond morality. Your wife is dead.
KELVIN: How do you know that? How can you be so definitive about a construct that you do not understand?
GORDON: She’s a copy. A facsilime. And she’s seducing you all over again. You’re sick!
The distinction here is meant to be ambiguous, calling into question what is human. Both react according to how they interpret human and their own desires. Also, human seems to be a product, not only of culture, but of environment. How could something that appears to come from an alien ocean planet, constructed from a particular person’s memories, and manifested physically by an alien thing be “human”? Gordon, as an empirical scientist cannot buy it; Kelvin, a psychologist remains dubious. Yet, we cannot so easily discount his desires and the morality — a human invention — of calling the obviously alien construct “human.” The visitors are a fact; there’s no doubting that physically. However, since science cannot explain their appearance, the question enters the realm of metaphysics.
It always seemed to me the height of human metaphysical arrogance to create God in our own image, specifically a white man — I guess the “white” part is the product of later Western artists, as Kelvin suggests during a flashback of a dinner party: “The whole idea of God was dreamed up by man. The limits that we put on it are human limits. It designs. It creates–” Rheya interjects, “No, I’m talking about a higher form of intelligence.” Gibarian is there, too, and adds: “No, you’re talking about something else. You’re talking about a man in a white beard, again. You are ascribing human characteristics to something that isn’t human.” While Rheya listens, she becomes uneasy. Kelvin continues, somewhat condescendingly, “Given all the elements of the known universe and enough time, our existence is inevitable. It’s no more mysterious than trees, or sharks, or your mathematical probability and that’s all.” Yes, you can’t explain everything, but that, according to Kelvin and his friends, does not prove the existence of a higher form of intelligence. As Solaris shows them, how we measure intelligence becomes mute in the presence of something that it cannot explain, so we attempt to make it fit into the parameters that we invented to define ourselves. The truly alien becomes a reflection of ourselves, a mirror. In a true postmodern moment, Kelvin speculates that even if there is a God, we cannot possibly hope to understand it. Yet, faced with God, Kelvin and the rest of the scientists seek to do just that.
The pivotal scene comes when Gibarian visits Kelvin in a dream — again the “dream” part is ambiguous. The latter accuses him of not being human, a mere puppet, but Gibarian returns: “Maybe you’re my puppet, but like all puppets, you think you’re actually human. Hence the puppet’s dream: being human.” Kelvin questions him about his son, but Gibarian answers that his son is back on earth. He continues: “And that’s not your wife. They are part of Solaris. Remember that.” Kelvin continues to probe, asking what Solaris wants. Gibarian answers: “Why do you think it has to want something? This is why you have to leave. If you keep thinking there’s a solution, you’ll die here.” Yet, Kelvin cannot leave her, remembering the guilt of leaving her the first time on earth, an action that precipitated her suicide. Kelvin must find the answers; he must understand Solaris so that he can cleanse his guilt and remorse. Gibarian says finally: “Do you understand what I’m trying to tell you: there are no answers, only choices.” Yet Kelvin, like the western conception of the rational human, believes that he can find the answers to the puzzles that Solaris presents.
Soderbergh’s Solaris reflects humanity’s quest for place where we can be most ourselves. This seems a vain and solipsistic longing to make the world a reflection of our inner perceptions that gives meaning and order to the universe, but simultaneously objectifies external realities and recreates them in our own image. We want to be like gods, whose creating words become manifest in the physical world. This brings security and comfort, like we might find at home, or that a filmmaker might find in his vision of a novel.
Indeed, the final scene vindicates this quest: Kelvin is again at home; he again is slicing vegetables for dinner and again cuts his finger as before, but this time he is able to wash away the cut, to erase it with water as easily one might erase a mistake on a computer screen. The scene cuts back to Kelvin deciding to remain on the station as Solaris expands to encompass it: he will not return to earth, a place now that is alien to him, where he would have to relearn to be human. Cutting back to the apartment, Rheya appears calling his name, and he asks if he is alive or dead. She, with an expression that is mirrored through the film, replies that “We don’t have to think like that anymore. We’re together now. Everything we’ve done is forgiven. Everything.” Their final embrace suggests his acceptance of this reality that seems to be the reflection of Kelvin’s greatest desire made manifest by Solaris. Kelvin has ostensibly found his place. He is now trapped in a reality of his own making.
Like Tarkovsky’s ending, Soderbergh’s seeks to find a repentance, an idea of heaven born from our greatest desires — a reflection of forgiveness and solace, a chance to right our greatest mistakes. Yet, again like Tarkovsky’s, this ending is also a trap, one from which Kelvin will not escape. He, like his patients at the beginning of the film, is now trapped in his own mind, having succeeded in making it his reality. His forgiveness is not external, but internal: he has forgiven himself his trespasses and now feels he deserves peace in the familiar. What is love other than a reflection of ourselves, a place to feel the most comfortable and secure? While we can live in this place, it also traps us, making the real world of human interaction less bearable and ultimately impossible.
While Tarkovsky’s answer seems to be a return to nature, away form the alienating concrete and steel of the city, Soderbergh’s seem to suggest technology might provide these moments of connection, but at a price. Like our family and friends, the technology that we surround ourselves with reflects our desires and provides us with spaces where we can be most ourselves, where transgressions are quickly erased and leave no scars. The digital world mirrors how we perceive ourselves, how we wish to be perceived, and how we perceive others. It’s a haven of security on one hand, and a place to interact on the other. Yet, even though we might chat, browse, or email, we are still physically sitting alone in our own rooms looking at a monitor that, if we look closely, reflects our hopeful faces in its glass. Solaris seems to be an effort to come to terms with our anxieties about what it means to be human in an increasing age of digital technology. What will happen when the digital becomes manifest in the products of nanotechnology, genetics, and robotics. What then?
