:: 2.09.2005 ::

Inside the Landscape
After I finished watching Tarkovsky's Solaris (1972) for the second time, I was struck once again by how utterly captivating Natalya Bondarchuk is as an otherworldly creature who, though she only appears to be human, somehow seems to become human before our very eyes.

I was even more amazed by her performance when I learned from her interview on the DVD that she was only 18 at the time of filming. Bondarchuk has a lot of other interesting things to say, but I particularly liked this (taken from the subtitles):

If we just look at a landscape, that's a documentary. But if we start seeing and hearing something else, what the artist makes possible for us to see, that is art, and it bewitches us. But it affects only those who have it inside themselves, who have already accumulated so much in their soul that they can take it in.

She goes on to say that this is why Tarkovsky's films are not for everyone. I can certainly see why Solaris might leave some confused or frustrated, but at the same time, I don't think it's nearly as abstruse as it may seem. So much of the imagery is both accessible and meaningful: A woman contemplating her reflection in a mirror and realizing for the first time, "This is me." A roiling, inscrutable cosmic sea that may or may not be aware of everything it is causing to happen. A man and a woman sharing a few moments of transcendence, hanging weightless in the air, touching only each other.

Solaris is flawed, difficult, and deeply strange. But in spite of the strangeness—perhaps because of it—there is much to bewitch us.

:: Posted by Laurie @ 11:23 PM [+] ::
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