 Andrei Tarkovsky's Solaris is a movie full of contrast, the contrast between the natural world and the futuristic one, Earth and Solaris, but perhaps most important is the contrast between the past and the present. This is central to the film's main message. It looks at the relationship between the two and explores how the present is shaped by the past, but also how it is shaped by our perceptions of the past and the present. This is established in the opening scene. As we follow Chris, our protagonist, walking around his childhood property, gazing at the serenity of nature with a look of shame on his face. As he reaches the house that he grew up in, he doesn't look at it. Instead, he focuses on the reflection in the water. This is the first of many reflections that we see in the movie. And throughout the film, reflections serve a number of thematic purposes. In this case, reflections are a visual embodiment of memories. Chris doesn't focus on the house itself. Instead, he looks to the memories and everything that is associated with the house. This is how Chris views the world, and early on he is trying to escape from his past. We see him burning his old notes in a picture of Harry, his wife who killed herself. After his walk, he washes his hands in the lake, cleansing himself from the memories. Solaris tells us that we are shaped by our memories. At the beginning of the movie, Chris tries to run from his past, when he really needs to embrace it to fix himself today. Very early on, we realize that Chris has had a traumatic past. He has a strange relationship with his father and hardly speaks to his mother. He may try and abandon part of the past, but ultimately, it is what he is shaped by. This is one of the biggest contrasts between Chris and his father, whereas Chris wants to distance himself from the past, his father wants to relive it and embody it. Back on Earth, Chris can choose to avoid the past. However, on Solaris, he has no choice but to come face to face with his past. While on the space station in orbit around Solaris, the living oceans of the planet create seemingly living representations of memories, called guests. For Chris, the planet creates a manifestation of Harry. While on the space station, there is no way to avoid these guests. Instead you just need to face them. At first, Chris tries to erase his problem by sending Harry out of the station in a rocket. But when she reappears, he chooses not to try and hide from her, but instead to embrace her. His reaction to Harry encapsulates how people respond to trauma. The guest version of Harry is a mere reflection of the real one. She was created from Chris's memories and is therefore incomplete, despite that he gives her unequivocal love, loving her more than he loved the real one. Chris's affection for her comes from his past wrongdoings, his never truly loving her, which led to her suicide. It would be safe to assume that Chris doesn't truly love the new one. He loves the idea of her, and the idea that he could have a second chance to right his previous wrongs. As Chris shows her real love, he succeeds in elevating her humanity. By all definitions, she isn't human. But as she explores life through Chris, she slowly starts to embody humanity. During this scene in the library, she studies the intricacies of this painting. She focuses in on every detail until the painting comes to life through the power of film. We hear the sounds of animals, people, and nature. We watch birds fly across the screen and see the painting come to life as Harry becomes human. We and Chris levitate off the ground and into the air, a representation of enlightenment. We watch as she becomes human, and he becomes truly happy, and it looks as if they have both found what they are looking for, until he loses her again. The present catches up with the past, and Chris is again alone. However, as she became human, she realized what she was doing to him, giving him a false perception of happiness and reality and ruining his life, keeping him up in the space station when he needed to be back on Earth. His memories want him to be able to move on and focus on the present, however, he is unable to, and upon losing Harry again, he begins to break down mentally. He wanders around aimlessly, seemingly broken. He isn't attached to anything, instead he just exists. That is, until he is locked in a literal chamber of reflections. He focuses on his past, looking at his family life growing up and sees where he went wrong. He reaches out trying to connect with his parents. After he saw Harry kill herself, he realizes that he can be wrong, and wants to be able to reconnect with his parents to make up for his past wrongdoings. And upon returning to Earth, he chooses to no longer hide from the past. He goes to his father's house and embraces him. His experiences on Solaris gave him the power to be able to do this. However, this moment of true happiness is revealed to be another mind-trick from the planet Solaris, as the camera dollies back to reveal that Chris is still trapped on the planet. He has wasted his entire life running from his true self, and when he is ready to embrace it, it was too late. Hey everyone, I hope you enjoyed, I've been meaning to discuss more than just English-speaking American films for a while now, and I thought that this would be a great place to start. All of Tarkovsky's work brings up interesting questions about love, identity, and the meaning of life, and this movie is clearly no exception. It's full of ambiguity, there are countless ways to interpret all the different symbolism in the movie, and this is just one of them, so be sure to drop a comment and get your thoughts out there. 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