Caboose

On Tuesday night I went to see Solaris, since then I’ve not had a chance to write about it.

My main impression of the film was that it was trying too hard to be arty and mysterious. Everything about it seemed slightly forced. It probably wasn’t worth going to see, there are better ways to spend the time.

I liked the design of the space station though, it avoided the sci-fi cliche of spacecraft always being dark and gloomy with all the walls painted black and lots of flickering lighting. There seemed to be a few nods to 2001: A Space Odyssey, especially the scene where Gordon is about to reactivate the station’s AI.

There was of course some of the usual pseudo-scientific babble, beams of Higgs bosons featured. They also managed to come to the conclusion that the apparations were composed of sub-atomic particles. Nobel prizes all round for the scientists of Solaris!

The best thing I can say about the film is that it’s better than the Seventies Russian effort, which is even more deliberately bewildering and dull.