Soljaris

I have not read the book, so I do not know what S. Lem was talking about in the first place. However, both Russian adaptations luckily avoid indulging in purposeless sci-fi genre extravagance with imaginary technological acrobatics (which adolescent American fantasies often enjoy). Therefore, it is also less important whether the ocean is trying to examine or even destroy humans with its own weapons, that is, with humans themselves. It is also unimportant that the set of the Soviet television from 1968 does not convince the viewer on its own that it is from the distant future because it deals with the innermost human psyche here, about the relationship to another human being, without which no psyche can exist. Those materialized beings are indeed fragile neutrino creatures, whose existence relies on an external source of energy that keeps them together, but we must not forget that it is no different in real life, as the main protagonist has already realized on Earth. Because even in ordinary life, a person close to us can become a fragile structure that is not sustained by a foreign ocean while alive, but by a completely different source - ourselves. Both films (and undoubtedly the book as well) are intellectually and emotionally very grateful themes. (06.12.2014)