Steven Soderbergh wrote and directed the film, Solaris (2002), based on the science-fiction novel of the same name by Polish author Stanislaw Lem, published in 1961. It is fitting to include a review of this film in this blog, 'Mystery of Existence and God,' because it deals with the philosophical issues of the meaning of life and the debate about the existence of God. The movie includes a scene wherein friends sit around a table arguing back and forth the existence of God or a "supreme intelligence." The concept of 'mystery' comes up in that discussion in ways that show 'mystery' to be a fundamental category of rationality that points toward God, though the majority at the table back the atheist viewpoint. The movie is about humans in a space station orbiting a planet, Solaris, attempting to assess its value as a potential source of energy. Strange happenings aboard the station lead to madness and deaths. A psychiatrist named Chris Kelvin is sent to the space station in a last-ditch effort to salvage the mission. The story unfolds from this character's perspective.
I saw Solaris at a movie theater with my nephew, Michael, when it came out and also several times at home on dvd. I like the movie very much and think it brilliant in portraying humans confronted by an alien power, trying to understand that power. In this case, the power emanates from Solaris and involves creating beings that appear to be human, based on Solaris somehow delving into the minds of the inhabitants of the orbiting station while they're sleeping. Thus Kelvin's deceased (by her own hand) wife Rheya is recreated in his cabin at bedside. The planet Solaris seems to be alive and intelligent and capable of creating life-forms.
As Kelvin reminisces and dreams of his life on Earth w/Rheya, we notice that it is continually raining. When we first meet Kelvin, at the film's start, carrying on his psychological practice before he's asked to visit Solaris, rain falling in an urban setting is a big part of the background. The film's opening credit - "Lightstorm Entertainment" - is accompanied by audio of rainfall and the first image of the film is a windowpane w/raindrops falling outside and on the glass. What is the meaning of this preponderance of rain in this film? How do the phenomena of rain, the absence of sun, gray cloudy skies, raincoats, umbrellas, wetness, enveloping Kelvin and Rheya, relate to the science-fiction themes of the movie, Solaris and its mystifying creative power, the terror and puzzlement and madness of the occupants of the space station? This is called an 'impressionist' review of the film because the rain sets the mood of the film for the viewer and mood is impressionistic, something inside an individual caused by something outside, special to him or her, like how stars made van Gogh feel, evident in his painting, 'Starry Night.'
Rain connotes different things for people at different times, of course. For a farmer in a drought, rain is a godsend, saving his crops; but too much rain may cause grapes to rot and the vintner to sigh and maybe shake her fists. Rain in Solaris is like rain in Elmore James' 'The Sky is Crying,' ". . . can't you see the tears roll down the street . . .," something emotional, a feeling sad and wistful. This is the context of Kelvin's past w/Rheya and his present w/the Rheya of Solaris. Rain has large power on planet Earth. Rain and water are necessary for life. How rain became associated with sadness, I'm not sure, but I can remember intoning the words to that child's rhyme, 'rain rain go away, come back another day' numerous times and there is sadness and wishing for sunshine that goes w/the words. I propose an analogy between rain's creative power on Earth and that of Solaris in outer space. We have forgotten the mystery that is contained in the rain (because we think that h2o and meteorology explain it), but the mystery of Solaris points to the Creator. Ask Chris Kelvin.
