Would you be embarrased of your 'visitor' too?

Wow, I love this thread! Only films like these could inspire such discussion, why I like movies like this...

I agree that not knowing what Solaris has cooked up for you is intriguing because everyones visitor was different to the individual. They all had different responses, which may have been Solaris' intention was to have them all asking themselves different philosophical questions about life and death, the power of the subconscious and a lot of what-ifs and what-nows...

So yeah im thinking my curiosity would get the better of me and i would have to go to see how Solaris would test me. Given the fact that whatever Solaris is made almost no one with the exception of Viola Davis' character return to Earth, i would have to be more than ready to say goodbye to this planet forever. So theres also that to think about.

And I appreciate the question, as well as the comments which have appeared here. It only serves to make me appreciate the film (as well as Lem's story) that much more.

I've been going over the comments, as well as watching the film again, and have been telling myself something that I wanted to pass on to you and the others who are following the discussion. Namely: in any discussion regarding an alien intelligence, the key word to remember is "alien". If we were all on Solaris Station we would have no genuinely honest way of determining either Solaris' frame of mine, or even a clear motive. Maybe the question we need to be considering is not which "visitor" we'd individually produce, but what prompts Solaris to pick the "visitors" it produced. What sort of reaction was Solaris trying to provoke? Did Solaris possess an actual intelligence, or was it simply (!) a substance which could react to our minds . . . sort of a "mirror" which responded to specific elements within our own unconscious?

Again we have no clue to provide a satisfactory answer. The only way I can think of for carrying out a decent exploration would be if perhaps a second alien race arrived at Solaris. It would receive visitors based on their own mental makeup, and then our two races would be able to compare notes.

On the surface, Solaris seemed to want to put the people on the station on some sort of defensive posture: uncomfortable and, as a result, vulnerable. Would such an approach make it easier for Solaris to establish deeper contact? Or, if the phenomenon of the visitors is indeed all in our laps, is Solaris underlining the idea that our most personal center is composed of our most private guilt? In this case Solaris plays Ophelia to our Hamlet: "Nymph, in thy orisons be all my sins remembered".

All of us communicate with each other through layers of self-created masks. Protective identities. We are not speaking with our actual selves but, rather, with the self we put before us. Solaris, on the other hand, forces the inhabitants of the station to communicate on the basic (intimate guilt) level. Hence the embarrassment and discomfort. If Solaris is, indeed, an intelligent being, then it might only desire to communicate with others on the most basic level.

Please pardon the armchair psychology. But after rolling all of this through my mind over the past few days I would definitely have to conclude that my visitor would indeed cause me embarrassment. Could I deal with it enough to progress? Or would I withdraw completely? Do any of us really know the guilt at our center? Or would we be surprised by what sort of visitor Solaris produced? Something even deeper, and more incisive, than we feel lies inside each of us?



"I'm not reckless . . . I'm skillful!"