Father & Daughter Film Report
While passing through Austin around the equinox we ran across this:
Now we've never seen the film, nor the remake in 2002 with George Clooney & Natascha McElhone, directed by Steven Soderbergh:
We must clarify one aspect of this film being shown in the Films based on Books from Russia series, is in fact, an exception.
Exceptional, too. We loved the idea of the very concept, so we want to sent out a big 'way-to-go' to Rebecca Rich-Wulfmeyer, Managing Librarian over there at the Yarborough Branch of the Austin Library System.
She single-handedly created her own film festival right there at the library! We hope the local citizens in the neighborhood - and her higher ups - appreciate the innovation going on at THAT branch.
Original Soviet film poster of Solaris (1972)
The exception is this film, while made in Russia in 1972, is an adaptation of Polish author Stanisław Lem's 1961 novel Solaris.
Actually, the first version of this story in film was a black & white two part 1968 Russian TV version of the novel, directed by Boris Nirenburg and produced by Центральное телевидение СССР (roughly translated, Central Television USSR).
You can read about the film all over the net, and we're sure if you saw any of the three versions out there you will get an idea of what Lem's wonderful concept of a life-form on another world in communication with a human.
We certainly wouldn't even try to make an interpretation without seeing the other two versions AND reading the book...which we will.
In the meantime, we were happy to see this version first.
While we only saw one film in the series, we are looking forward to seeing more, which the Austin Polish Society does once a month:
