Solaris, the Stephen Soderbergh’s 2002 film starring George Clooney and Natascha McElhone, frames a classic story of heartbreak a billion miles from Earth, orbiting a mysterious planet in a space station sent to figure what’s up. Something big enough to fly Clooney’s eminent psychologist and space higher-up out to investigate why people are flipping out and dying.
This is a love story, built around a rare level of attraction between two people, which is so powerful, it seems like it could transcend life itself. Which, thanks to the weirdness around Solaris, it does. Spending his first night on the orbiting station, Clooney awakes to find his beautiful wife sitting next to him, smiling serenely. Shocking not only as to the mystery of how she got there, but because she’d committed suicide on Earth years earlier. Yet here she is, flesh and bone and heart and brain, dark memory-free, in one piece, staring at him innocently and asking what’s wrong.
Remember how little dialog there was in 2001? The empty spaces were filled with huge and lush mixes of giant orchestral works, including the iconic Also sprach Zarathustra – Daaa-Daaa Daaaaaaaaaaaaa…. DiDAAAAAA, boom-boom-boom-boom-boom… etc.
The paucity of dialog in this film makes for the most underwhelming framework since then, adding to the mystery of these manifestations that it turns out each member of the crew is dealing with. Whoever meant the most to them – they’re there now. How to go insane in one easy step.
Clooney makes an ultimate decision at the climax of the film, all the more desperate because in this brainy experiment, he’s ostensibly the brightest bulb. Yet he cannot resist chasing the greatest love of his life towards what must surely be his doom, satisfied it’s what’s worth living for.
Heady stuff, the things that matter most. The greatest love. The biggest score. The most magnanimous gift. The ultimate expression of art, skill, gratitude, forgiveness…
These things that stir our souls, now and a thousands years hence. It’s the stardust talkin’. And we’re all made of it.
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