Favorite Forgotten Films

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Russell Carpenter, ASC

There is probably nothing really 'forgotten' about this work of art...this 1972 science fiction film by Andrei Tarkovsky and cinematographer Vadim Yusov won the Grand Jury Award at the Cannes Film Festival.

Solaris, with its stunning widescreen compositions, is not a film that is busy to get anywhere soon...I was particularly moved by the beautiful 'song of the earth' which starts the film. It is a world without words, just quiet 'sermons in the stones.' A slow collage of rhythmic meditations...reeds gently moving in the currents of a stream.

This beautiful prologue sets the stage for what happens in the body of the film, now situated on a space station hovering above the ocean planet Solaris. The confrontation is not between man and technology (as in 2001, a contemporary film) but between modern technological men and their own internal fantasies and unresolved pasts made 'incarnate' by the 'living ocean' of the planet Solaris.

This is an incredible film and I hope other people discover it!