If there’s a beautiful film that makes you travel and think, but no one is there to see it, is the film still beautiful? It takes someone to embark on that journey and have those thoughts.
One evening this winter, a short but intense journey began. One of those trips without tickets or red cinema seats, taken while sitting still aboard a virtual film forum. The word “virtual” can mean simulated or unreal, but I like to pair it with the word “possible.” It was 2020, during the lockdown, when it felt like nothing could be imagined or achieved, that the only thing left to do was to wait and forget that empty moment. And yet, an idea emerged: cinema and being together virtually. Thus, a film forum full of possibilities was born—free and without limits. That’s why the idea of a journey is a fitting way to tell its stories.
Every now and then (Without a reason? Or with one?), a train of cinematic visions begins to move, and a group of people packs their bags to board and take their seats. For years, we’ve ventured on this journey, borrowing images from filmmakers to say something about ourselves, to understand, to ask questions—not to learn how a film was made but to understand why those thoughts were expressed through images.
The latest journey followed a challenging, daring, and rather peculiar path. It was an exploration of the invisible, made visible through the cinema of distant lands. The final stop took us to a living, vital planet with its own unique biology: Solaris.
I had already seen the original 1971 film when I was much younger, and I was struck by the brilliance of the story and certain graceful natural images. But this time, I want to share what I saw. It must have been something powerful if it moved me to write these words.
Solaris is the story of the materialization of what’s inside people: hidden memories or thoughts, or the things we haven’t yet been able to part with—or, by reliving them, finally can let go of.
I thought it was a magnificent representation of a method of understanding—the deeper, truer, and sometimes invisible reality of humans. I found the portrayal of the failure of the scientific method, understood as mathematical and rational, to be ingenious. This method fails to grasp anything about this living planet. All it yields is an infinite mass of data that is meaningless and remains incomprehensible, shapeless, never managing to give a clear picture of the ever-changing planet.
Equally ingenious is the proposal of another method to understand Solaris. This method is opposed by other scientists but fully embraced by one alone—the most human of all. A psychologist, by chance.
The method involves completely letting go and seeing what happens, breaking free from everything that came before. Never returning to solid ground, if that ground is the old planet and the old way of being in the world.
In short, to understand and know oneself, perhaps it’s necessary to undertake a Copernican revolution, centering the body with which we feel what’s inside and outside.
Solaris made me think of these things, and I found it more real than science fiction.
I recommend it—and forgive the spoilers.
Maria Giubettini
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