The film is unlike anything that I have seen before, and begs many philosophic questions about the nature of reality and existence, the meaning of love, time and timelessness, and much more. The scientists in fact want to experiment on sending an annihilation sacrificial pulse of radiation to the ocean below, and imply, it seems, an interest in using Hari for that purpose. Sartorius (Anatoli Solonitsyn) puncture any misconceptions that Kris may have by clarifying that 'she' is not real, and invite Kris to try looking at a blood sample, which clearly is not human ('she' does 'bleed' when hurt, but the 'blood' can be easily wiped away). The first night there, Kris himself wakes up to find his long-dead love Hari (Natalya Bondarchuk) by his side. 'Guests' materialize on the ship, crafted from mental elements of the crews' minds. He finds out that the crew has been experimenting with sending pulses of radiation into the planet's vast ocean and are in turn manipulated by some sort of innate intelligence on the planet. The basic story is that a Russian spaceship in orbit around a planet has been sending back confusing status, and Kris Kelvin (Donatas Banionis) is sent to investigate. It is such a complex film that it probably takes at least two or three viewings to feel that one has understood much of it. Though it's a classic and has much to recommend it highly, I must admit that the first half I found a bit difficult to sit through - having just had a nice pasta dinner and some chocolate didn't help :-). As we knew from reviews we had seen, it is a very long film at 165 minutes with many drawn-out but compelling scenes. Wow, what an experience my wife and I had tonight seeing 'Solaris', based on a novel by one of my favorite science fiction writers, Stanislaw Lem.

სოლარისი by Stanisław Lem