Love in Other Worlds

Solaris I may be biased because I am a huge George Clooney fan, but I thought this was an interesting and engaging movie. The ending in particular really made me think especially since they both were not human anymore—but both memories of their human forms. This reminded me of Zizek’s “Courtly Love or Woman as a Thing,” in regards to Zizek’s idea that women are just an empty space where men put on their desire. Rheya “functions as a kind of ‘black hole’ around which [Chris’] desire is structured. The space of desire is bent like space…the only way to reach the Object-Lady is indirectly,” (Zizek 94). The aloof character Gibarian alludes to the Myth of Narcissus when he declares, “We don’t want other worlds. We want mirrors.” If others worlds are a symbol for women, then Gordon is effectively saying that men don’t want a real person, they just want a mirror of themselves projected onto a woman. Dr. Gordon confirms this when she tells Chris, “She’s a mirror that affects part of your mind. You provide the formula.” It seems she is saying that love is nothing more than a human constructed formula, re-told throughout the ages and believed by many. Maybe it’s just me, but I find that Chris’ urge to “make do” and “restart” his relationship with this alien unsettling. Chris, a psychologist, fully knowing this women is not a human, not his wife, is willing to go along with Solaris’ copy just so he can have someone. The film uses a lot of extreme close-ups of eyes, blood, and faces, along with the use of chiasmus to destabilize the traditional love scenes, making them dream-like and indistinct. On a higher level, the film does refer to religion versus numbers and probability, as well as transcendentalism and existentialism. Another important allusion in the film is the poem, “And Death Shall Have No Dominion,” by Thomas Dylan, Chris quotes it, Rheya quotes it, and it shows up in Rheya’s suicide note. The meaning of the phrase changes throughout the film from the beginning where Chris just uses it to impress Rheya to the end, where the two realize they are no longer human. I am Love One thing I found fascinating in this movie is the mother daughter relationship, something that has not really been focused on in our class discussions. I like how the mother and daughter look to each other for strength and guidance, when both of them are figuring out life as they go, unsure of what to do next. Emma looks at Betta’s happiness as her explores her sexuality and knows she must do the same. I thought there were a lot of phallic symbols in the novel. Like when Antonio uses the paste tube to squirt out the tomato paste onto the fish, then the next shot is of Emma shoving the fish into her mouth and moaning…In the restaurant Emma stares at the prawn with wide eyes—a symbol for his penis/the object of her desire. She then begins to chow down, and I can honestly say I’ve never seen anyone enjoy his or her food to that degree before now. I think the name Emma was an allusion to Emma Bovary, especially since she did not like or choose the name; her husband gave it to her, effectively stripping away her Russian identity and giving her an Italian one. The pool is focused on multiple times in the film, before I saw the ending I wondered why, then I understood. Probably the most well done scene in the movie is the sex scene where shots of their skin are alternated with shots of flowers with bugs on them. In the film there were two symbols for desire and entrapment: the moth and the light of the lamp and the bird trapped in the cathedral.