283 words on Films
Leif and me took Solaris, that is the 1972 Russian film based on Stanisław Lem's novel rather than the 2002 Hollywood remake. Getting the video was quite funny. There's about one decent video store in Göttingen that has quite a good selection of non-mainstream and original language films. They moved the location of the store, changed their computer system and I could still take a video out on my old account, the card of which I consider lost and which I hadn't used for three years. In fact, taking me to a video store is always embarassing as I have a tendency to take the video enclosures from the shelf rather than those little plastic tabs which you're supposed to take (you don't need a computer to have a bad user interface...). Anyway, we found the film, Russian with English subtitles. I had heard it's brilliant and I like Lem's writing, voilà.
The film is about a space station on a distant planet with a strange ocean on it which is assumed to be intelligent - reading the thoughts of the people on the station and materialising people from their past there. Very hard to describe, somewhat spooky.
It is very slow (and almost 3 hours long). Some scenes were extremely long with no cuts in them, sometimes for several minutes - I have the impression that my consumption 'modern' films with their fast pace make me feel nervous or even uneasy about this. Sometimes the film reminded me of Kubrick's "2001".
I don't quite know what to make of it yet. I guess I may read the book, see the new film and try to make sense of everything.
Tarkovsky’s films are known to be not for everyone. But if you scroll through it few more times, it grows on you. You should really check out “Andrei Rublev”, it’s much easier to consume, and then if you like it watch “Stalker” and “Mirror”.
Thanks, I’ll note these and give it a try.
