Solaris

Roger Ebert / December 28, 1976 One of the most frequent charges against science-fiction is that it replaces emotion with intellect. Its characters are people who live by and for the mind, and their personal relationships are likely to be stifled and awkward, That s probably true enough of most s-f novels (although exceptions range from Fredric Brown s The Lights in the Sky are Stars to a lot of the work by Theodore Sturgeon), but it s even more true of science-fiction movies. Solaris is an interesting exception to the rule. It s a 21/2 hour Russian epic, filmed at great expense, and yet it s about the lives and emotions of its characters -- not about gadgets or monsters or space opera props. The movie s based on a novel by Stanislas Lem, one of the leading figures of Eastern European science-fiction, and takes place partly on a Soviet space station orbiting the mysterious planet Solaris, and partly in the imaginations and subconscious of the station s crew members.