Stars: Natalya Bondarchuk, Donatas Banionis, Yuri Jarvet, Anatoli Solonitsyn, Vladislav Dvorzhetsky, Sos Sarkissian

Director: Andrei Tarkovsky

Summary: A psychologist is sent to investigate the strange deaths on board a space station.

SOLARIS, director Andrei Tarkovsky's science fiction cult classic, presents an uncompromisingly unique and poetic meditation on space travel and its physical and existential ramifications. When a long-standing Russian space station hovering above the planet Solaris begins to report strange phenomena, Kris Kelvin (Donatas Banionis), an eager and intrepid cosmonaut, departs for the station in order to investigate. Warned by former Solaris specialists that the planet presents incomprehensible obstacles, Kelvin is nevertheless secure in his mission. However, the minute he steps foot onto the haunted and desolate space station, everything changes. Kelvin learns that of the three members left on board, one has killed himself and the remaining two have seemingly become schizophrenic recluses. When Kelvin's dead ex-wife appears out of the shadows, the reports that Solaris is a thinking being capable of reading human minds and materializing their desires and memories are proven true. As Kelvin joins the rest of the crew in a seemingly life-or-death struggle to understand this phenomena, Tarkovsky crafts a mind-altering earthbound space odyssey. Filled with visions of humanity versus itself, SOLARIS takes the philosophical investigations of Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY to extravagant lengths and offers no answers except this: The only frontier humanity has yet to conquer is that of its own existence.

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Released in 1972, Solarisis Andrei Tarkovsky's third feature and his most far-reaching examination of human perceptions and failings. It's often compared to Kubrick's 2001, but although both bring a metaphysical dimension to bear on space exploration, Solarishas a claustrophobic intensity which grips the attention over spans of typically Tarkovskian stasis. Donatas Banionis is sympathetic as the cosmonaut sent to investigate disappearances on the space station orbiting the planet Solaris, only to be confronted by his past in the guise of his dead wife, magnetically portrayed by Natalya Bondarchuk. The ending is either a revelation or a conceit, depending on your viewpoint.

On the DVD:Solarisreproduces impressively on DVD in widescreen--which is really essential here--and Eduard Artemiev's ambient score comes over with pristine clarity. There are over-dubs in English and French, plus subtitles in 12 languages. An extensive stills gallery, detailed filmographies for cast and crew, and comprehensive biographies of Tarkovsky and author Stanislaw Lem are valuable extras, as are the interviews with Bondarchuk and Tarkovsky's sister and an amusing 1970s promo-film for Banionis. It would have been better had the film been presented complete on one disc, instead of stretched over two. Even so, the overall package does justice to a powerful and disturbing masterpiece. --Richard Whitehouse

Aspect Ratio:	Wide Screen
Main Language:	Russian
Region:	Region 2
Special Features:	Filmographies, Stills Gallery, Andrei Tarkovsky And Stanislaw Lem Biographies, Interview With Actress Natalya Bondarchuk, Lead Actor Donatas Banionas Featurette, Interview With Andrei Tarkovskys Sister Marina Tarkovskaya
Subtitles:	Arabic, Chinese, Dutch, English, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish
Year:	1972
Release Date:	January 21, 2002
Runtime:	159 minutes
Certification:
Catalogue Number:	A R T 211 D V D
Keywords:	Subtitled, Two, General, Wide, Screen, Fiction, Russian, Science, Solaris, Horror, Discs, Sci, Fi, Solyaris
Genre:	Science Fiction