Solaris story
A meditative psychological drama occurring mostly aboard a space station orbiting the fictional planet Solaris. The scientific mission has stalled because the skeleton crew of three scientists have fallen into separate emotional crises. Psychologist Kris Kelvin travels to the Solaris space station to evaluate the situation only to encounter the same mysterious phenomena as the others.
15 total · 9 major · 6 minor
| Theme | Level | Motivation |
|---|---|---|
| coping with memories of a lost love | major | Kris over his suicided wife Hari. |
| coping with the death of a spouse | major | Kris encountered replicas of his dearly departed wife, Hari, while aboard the space station. |
| incompatible modes of communication | major | A point was made about the alien mind of Solaris being so different from the human mind that clear communication between it and the people on the space station was not possible. |
| problem of language and meaning | major | The Solaris world ocean appeared to be trying to communicate with the humans on the space station in orbit around it. |
| romantic love | major | Kris and the Hari replica. |
| space station | major | The bulk of the film took place on the space station Solaris. |
| the limits of science | major | The viewer is made to ponder whether the mysterious world ocean on Solaris was too mysterious for science to explain. |
| what if my personal identity came into question | major | The viewer is made to ponder to what extent was the Hari replica that the world ocean conjured up was the the same as the Hari who'd killed herself some years prior. |
| what if my thoughts became reality | major | A mysterious influence bound up with the titular Solaris planet conjured a version of Kris' dearly departed wife, Hari, into reality. It likewise conjured both Kris' mother and Berton's son into reality. |
| coping with suicide | minor | Kris lamented that his wife Hari had taken her own life. |