My Name is Ivan; Solaris

Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky's debut film My Name is Ivan (released theatrically under the title Ivan's Childhood) is an intermittently engrossing, and highly stylized, story of a 12-year-old boy's coming-of-age in the worst of circumstances. As the film opens, Ivan (powerfully portrayed by Kolya Burlaiev) is a Russian child spy who thinks only of wreaking vengeance on the Germans for the murder of his mother and sister. Although Ivan's compatriots--the officers and soldiers of his adopted regiment--would like to see Ivan in a military school out of harm's way, the fiery Ivan insists on being at the forefront of the action. In the most intense scenes in the film, one can see the two primary forces at work in Ivan: the lust for revenge and the natural desire for a boy to want to play men's games. It is this second force that lends poignancy to Ivan's misplaced bravado, as the film moves toward its unavoidably tragic conclusion. Recommended. Watching Tarkovsky's sci-fi "cult classic" Solaris, on the other hand, is in humorist Dave Barry's immortal words, only slightly more amenable than undergoing "vasectomy via Weed Whacker." Based on Stanislaw Lem's novel, this nearly three hours of hell not on Earth, recounts in quasi-metaphysical lingo the story of Chris Kelvin (Donatis Baniotas), a lackluster dweeb psychologist who visits a space station orbiting Solaris (a planet? giant brain? rift in space and time? bowl of jelly?) to determine whether the project of exploring Solaris is still viable. Once there, Kelvin discovers that the planet (?) communicates by creating people from one's past. But there's a catch: the people dematerialize once the actual human is out of sight. Most of the film is given over to Kelvin's relationship with a woman from his past. The romantic pair espouse undying love for one another, but every time Kelvin feels the urge to go talk vague metaphysics with one of the other crew members, the ghostly woman up and croaks. Fortunately, Solaris's capacity to churn out replicas is worthy of a Ford assembly line, so that Kelvin always gets a new version of his girl back. Three factors contribute to making Solaris less than the towering work of genius it was originally attributed to be (it also won a Grand Jury Award at Cannes): 1) whole stretches of feverish dialogue are occasionally translated as "why?" or similar one-syllable responses, 2) the panoramic scope of the shots both inside and outside the space station are considerably diluted on the small screen, and 3) amazing special-effects circa 1971 aren't so special twenty years later. Unless snooty film buffs beat a path to your desk waving requests, you can safely ignore this epic. Not recommended. (R. Pitman) [DVD Review--Feb. 11, 2003--Criterion, 2 discs,169 min., in Russian w/English subtitles, not rated, $39.95. What a difference a decade and a format change make. Although I'm still not convinced that Tarkovsky's "cult classic" is all it's cracked up to be, Criterion's double disc set offers vast improvements over the VHS version I originally watched. Sporting a new anamorphic widescreen transfer--particularly relevant given the film's original ratio of 2:35:1--as well crisp Dolby Digital mono sound and much better subtitles, the DVD also features a slew of extras. On the first disc, film scholars Vida Johnson and Graham Petrie offer up an academic, somewhat pedantic, occasionally snooze-worthy commentary. On disc two, viewers will find over 100 minutes of interviews with the lead actress, cinematographer, art director, and composer, as well as a pointless five-minute excerpt from a documentary about author Stanislaw Lem that purports to cover his dissatisfaction with Tarkovsky's film but does nothing of the sort. In addition, the second disc includes nine deleted and alternate scenes, as well as text essays on the film by the late Japanese master director Akira Kurosawa and film scholar Phillip Lopate. Bottom line: Given the cult status, vast improvement over the VHS release, and the recent remake by Steven Soderbergh starring George Clooney, the DVD should be considered a strong optional purchase.] [DVD/Blu-ray Review—May 24, 2011—Criterion, 166 min., in Russian w/English subtitles, not rated, DVD: 2 discs, $39.95, Blu-ray: $39.95—Making its first appearance on Blu-ray, third on DVD, 1972's Solaris features a fine transfer with LPCM mono sound sound. Bonus features include audio commentary by Tarkovsky scholars Vida Johnson and Graham Petrie, deleted and alternate scenes (25 min.), an excerpt from a documentary on novelist Stanislaw Lem (5 min.), and interviews with cinematographer Vadim Yusov (34 min.), costar Natalya Bondarchuk (33 min.), composer Eduard Artemyev (22 min.), and art director Mikhail Romadin (17 min.), as well as a booklet featuring an essay by critic Phillip Lopate and an appreciation by filmmaker Akira Kurosawa. Bottom line: a solid extras package for a cult favorite making its debut on Blu-ray.]