Two films that I have viewed recently are Russian Ark and the remake of Solaris. Both have very different stories and information presented but they both hold a similar pacing. While Russian Ark is all about moving through the Russian Hermitage museum and visiting different time periods with different influential people in Russian history accompanied by Marquis de Custine who is a famous French traveler who is know for his travel writing, but mainly from his writing about his visit to Russia. Marquis is also a traveler is this film through the Museum that takes him and the main character, whose identity is unknown, while they go back and forth on the events taking place in front of them and form what era they happened and the meaning their creators put behind each piece. Russian Ark’s most interesting aspect is that it is shot all in one take, all 98 minutes of it. While the Solaris remake is about a psychologist, Dr. Kris Kelvin who is asked to visit a space station that is orbiting a planet named Solaris by an old friend who works on the station. When he arrives he doesn’t know what to expect and finds a blood trail that leads to two bodies, one of them being his friend that asked him to come and investigate what’s happening on the station. He then wakes up the next morning to his dead wife being in front of him and sends her off in a space shuttle. The next morning she is in his room again and he starts to go crazy like the rest of the shipmates as everyone has a dead loved one who “visits” them and calls them “guests”. Eventually they rid themselves of these “guests” but the main character decides to stay behind of the station as it plummets into Solaris and it’s uncertain as to what is really happening as he is “back” in his apartment with his wife and is told that all is forgiven.

Many critics say that both Russian Ark and Solaris are wonderful films with a great plot. In regards to Russian Ark Roger Ebert said, “The camera doesn’t merely take us on a guided tour of the art on the walls and in the corridors, but witnesses many visitors who came to the Hermitage over the years. Apart from anything else, this is one of the best-sustained ideas I have ever seen on the screen.” I would have to say that Roger Ebert is right in the idea that the camera doesn’t just flow through the Hermitage but rather it shows us all of it’s pieces in context and beauty, but to say it’s the “best-sustained idea ever on the screen” is taking it a little far but it is still phenomenal. To even further push the ideas of Russian Ark Peter Bradshaw from the Guardian said, “It is acted out by battalions of players and musicians in full costume. And all of it seamless; not a single cut or edit. Cinematographer Tilman Büttner had to carry a specially modified Steadicam capable of recording up to 100 minutes of high-definition video on to a hard disk.” To create such a unique rig for one film shows how much dedication the director had for this project as he really felt that it had to be shot in one take and went so far as to have a custom steady cam that could record over an hour and a half of footage in one film. If they didn’t have this camera then they wouldn’t have been able to shoot this film. While with Solaris Roger Ebert states, “The genius of Lem’s underlying idea is that the duplicates, or replicants, or whatever we choose to call them, are self-conscious and seem to carry on with free will from the moment they are evoked by the planet. Rheya, for example, says, ‘I’m not the person I remember. I don’t remember experiencing these things.’ And later, ‘I’m suicidal because that’s how you remember me.'” Roger points out a very important piece of the film in that it matters more that the entities have their own independent thought but it is based on what someone else feels and thinks of them as and not what they were in their entirety. This can bring out the question of whether or not we are what others see us as or what we see ourselves to be, and the answer could be one or the other or maybe even both. Peter Bradshaw from the Guardian says, “Soderbergh has maintained Tarkovsky’s strangely, stubbornly undramatic pace, somewhere between languid and somnambulist, and like Tarkovsky he preserves the singular effect of taking us straight from the Earth locations to the spaceship interiors without the traditional, exciting business of blast-off, pulling G-forces, dials and readouts, etc.” I felt that the pacing of the film was necessary so as the film’s atmosphere would come through more clearly and made it feel more like it was a tribute to Tarkovsky rather than a way to brag that his was better. Since I had previously watched Tarkovsky’s version I felt that the remake had to have at least a similar pace to it so that it could encompass the same atmosphere as the original and echo the ideas that maybe reality is untrue. It’s interesting that even though these two had a wide variety of differences their main similarity is that they focused on detailed ideas and held a slow but consistent pace.

Solaris Trailer

Russian Ark Trailer 

Even just looking at the movie posters it can become apparent that the genre of film is different but there is a sense of style being similar. When watching their trailers it becomes apparent that their pacing follows the same pattern while their substance is very different and holds different ideas behind each action. Neither films seems to be unconventional especially since both were taken very well by audiences and not issues arose from the films or about them. Both films are very incredible and interesting to view and I would recommend people to watch both as they offer their own knowledge and stories.

Lastly I just want to share my favorite scenes from either films. With my favorite from Solaris being after they “leave” the station, and my favorite from Russian Ark being from the end where there is a large ball taking place.