References

Books:

Albrecht, G., Sartore, G-M., Connor, L., Higginbotham, N., Freeman, S., Kelly, B., Stain, H., Tonna, A., & Pollard, G. (2007). “Solastalgia: the distress caused by environmental change”. Australasian Psychiatry 15 (1): S95-S98

Baudrillard, Jean; Guillaume, Marc. (2008 ed.) Radical alterity. Trans. By Ames Hodges. (Cambridge, Mass and London: MIT Presss)

Beaudrillard, Jean. (1983) Simulations.trans. by Paul Foss, Paul Patton and Philip Beitchman. (Semiotext[e]: Columbia University)

Bauman, Zygmund.(1995) Life in fragments. Essays in Postmodern Morality. (Blackwell – Oxford & Cambridge USA)p. 82-83, 105

Bell, Catherine. (1992). Ritual theory. Ritual practice. (Oxford University Press – Oxford) – p.42

Bruner, Jerome. (1990). Acts of meaning. (Harvard University Press – Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, England.)

Dudley, Andrew J. ed. (1976). The major film theories. An introduction. (Oxford University Press: London, Oxford, New York)

Leviton, Richard (2005) – Encyclopedia of Earth Myths. (Charlottesville, VA – Hampton Roads Publishing Company, Inc.)

Maslow, Abraham H. (1968). Towards a Psychology of Being. 2nd edition. (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold)

Potter, Cherry. (2001) Screen Language. From film writing to film-making. (Methuen – London)

Pramaggiore, Maria; Wallis, Tom. Film. A critical introduction. 2nd ed. (Laurence Koing Publishing Ltd.- London.)

Van Leeuwen, Theo. (1999). Speech, Music, Sound. (Macmillan Press Ltd. – Hampshire and London)

Film:

‘Solaris‘ (1972) Dir. Andrei Tarkovsky

‘Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky’ (1988) Dir. Michal Leszczylowski

Internet:
prison [accessed on 20.10.2009]

Local Interstellar Cloud [accessed on 27.10.2009]

Lang, Silke Berit. “The Impact of Video Systems on Architecture”, dissertion, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, 2004″ – [from: prison accessed on 20.10.2009]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun#Terminology [accessed on the 31.10.2009]
/ɒmˈnɪsiəns/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colloid – accessed on 2.11.2009 [accessed on 2.11.2009]

image of Rembrandt’s painting ‘The return of the prodigial son’. [image attached above, sourced from: http://www.milligan.edu/bible/PKenneson/return-prodigal-son.jpg

image of the ocean on Solaris – included in the i-map: http://thinkulacrum.files.wordpress.com/2008/01/picture-4.png

image of Kris and Hari in ‘Solaris‘ sourced from: http://www.leftfieldcinema.com/files/images/solaris3.jpg

Study diary

I chose to analyse the excerpt from ‘Solaris’ because its philosophical perspective intrigued me. Also I felt that Tarkovsky’s prestige demands a closer look and in-depth investigation so I can say that it represented a challenge.

Although I only started my research in the second week, I got to rewatch the film and take notes in the first week. I was familiar with the subject but it has been about 5 years since I had seen it. There are many subjects to analyse and the fact that the entire movie provides such complex issues for debate further contributed to my enthusiasm. I started by jotting down the ideas and connections with psychological ans social aspects that the dialogue in the excerpt connoted to. By further connecting those elements to the diversity of messages that the film presents I got to feel closer to understanding Tarkovsky’s intention and see his contribution to the story. The message was transformed for me from the initial psychological field and the sci-fi implications and connections to the thirst for knowledge through to seeing the message of the film as a possible grand-scale metaphor of the experience of death (along with the idea of coming to terms with the human condition and accepting vulnerability) – transgression towards another realm, towards an Unknown that we can only experience at its own time.

I wanted to back-up my ideas but at the same time I was glad to see that, while doing the research other ideas have arised and informed my exploration.

Due to more personal circumstances I wasn’t able to devote as much as I would have wanted to the completion of the blog and ended up with yet unanswered questions, but I will make up for it with further research for the wiki.

• Audience/ Impact

1/ What Reality is the film outlining?

‘Phenomenologically the terms ‘internal’ and ‘external’ have little validity. But in this whole realm one is reduced to mere verbal expedients – words are simply the finger pointing to the moon. One of the difficulties of talking in the present day of these matters is that the very existence of inner realities is now called in question. By ‘inner’ I mean our way of seeing the external world and all those realities that have no ‘external’, ‘objective’ presence – imagination, dreams, phantasies, trances, the realities of contemplative and meditative states, realities that modern man, for the most part, has not the slightest direct awareness of. ’ Laing, R.D. (1981, 1st ed. 1967). The politics of experience and the bird of paradise. (Penguin Books – Middlesex, England).- p.115

2/ How did the general public react to the film’s message at the time of the release and what are the views on it now?

I tried to find information on the Internet as well as in books but I couldn’t find something saftisfactory to respond to this question, other than simply stating the fact that Solaris was:

Nominated for the Golden Scroll Best Science Fiction Film
Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films, USA
Year Result: 1977

Awarded the FIPRESCI Prize: Cannes Film Festival 1972
Award Category/Recipient(s): Andrei Tarkovsky

Awarded the Grand Prize of the Jury at Cannes Film Festival 1972
Recipient(s): Andrei Tarkovsky

Nominated for the Golden Palm at Cannes Film Festival 1972
Recipient(s):Andrei Tarkovsky

(information sourced from:http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069293/awards  – accessed on 11.11.2009)

5/ What about in the attempt to communicate with the/an alien entity?

‘Theoretically, no limits can be set to the field of consciousness, since it is capable of indefinite extension. Empirically, however, it always finds its limit when it comes up agains the unknown. This consists of everything we do not know, which, therefore, is not related to the ego as the centre of the field of consciousness. The unknown falls into two groups of objects: those which are outside and can be experienced by the senses, and those which are inside and are experienced immediately. The first group comprises the unknown in the outer world; the second the unknown in the inner world. We call this latter territory the unconscious. (Collected Works, C.G. Jung, ii, p2)
(…) Besides these we must include all more or less intentional repressions of painful thoughts and feelings. I call the sum of all these contents the ‘personal unconscious’. But, over and above that, we also find in the unconscious qualities that are not individually acquired but are inherited, e.g., instincts as impulses to carry out actions from necessity, without conscious motivation. In this ‘deeper’ stratum we also find the … archetypes… The instincts and archetypes together form the collective unconscious.’ – – by C.G. Jung – [originally published in Collected Works – p. 270 ] – quoted in Jung, C.G. (). Word and Image (1977). (ed. By Aniela Jaffe). Bollingen Series XCVII: 2. (Princeton University Press – New Jersey, USA) – p. 230

4/ What role does uncertainty play in human interaction/ communication?

Bauman, Zygmund.(1995) Life in fragments. Essays in Postmodern Morality. (Blackwell – Oxford & Cambridge USA):
page 82: “Identity is a critical projection of what is demanded and/or sought upon ‘what is, with an added proviso that it is up to the ‘what is’ to rise, by its own effort, to the ‘sought/demanded’; or, more exactly still, identity is an oblique assertion of the inadequacy or incompleteness of the ‘what is’. Identity entered modern mind and practice dressed from the start as an individual task. It was up to the individual to find an escape from uncertainty.”
page 83: “’We are pilgrims through time’ was under the pen of St.Augustine not an exhortation, but a statement of fact. We are pilgrims whatever we do, and there is little that we can do about it even if we wished. Earthly life is but a brief overture to the eternality of the soul. Ultimately, it is not where we are destined to be – and only that part of ours that is destined to be elsewhere is worth of concern and care.
Only a few would wish, and have the ability, to compose that brief earthly overture themselves, in tune with the music of the heavenly spheres – to make their fate into a consciously embraced destiny. These few would need to escape the distractions of the town. The desert is the habitat they must choose.”
page 105: “In human life, fear is no news. Humanity knew it from its inception; few would find a place close to the top in any imaginable shortlist of humanity’s most conspicuous characteristics. Each era of history had its own fears which set it apart from other epochs; or rather, each gave the fears known to all epochs names of its own creation. These names were concealed interpretations; they informed of where the roots of feared threats lay, what one could do to keep the threats away, or why one could do nothing to ward them off. After all, another of humanity’s most conspicuous traits is that cognitive and conative faculties intertwine so closely that only people called philosophers, well trained in the art of separation, can take them apart and imagine one without the other. The threats themselves seem to have been always, stubbornly, the same. Sigmund Freud classified them once for all time:
“We are threatened with suffering from three directions: from our own body, which is doomed to decay and dissolution and which cannot even do without pain and anxiety as warning signals; from the external world, which rage against us with overwhelming and merciless forces of destruction; and finally from our relations with other men.” – [Sigmund Freud, civilization and its Discontents, trans. Joan Riviere (London: Hogarth Press, 1973), p.14.]”
page 106: “The constant principle of all strategies that had been deployed through history to make life with fear liveable was that of shifting the attention from things one can do nothing about, to things one can thinker with; and to make the thinkering energy – and time-consuming enough to leave little room (better still none at all) for the worry about things no thinkering could change. A pocketful of small coins with which to buy little graces allowed the putting off of the moment of confrontation with existential insolvency. Each era minted its own coins, as each era made different graces worth seeking or imperative to seek.”

Page 106: “Fears of Panopticon – Certainty and transparency are often presented as the ‘project’ of modernity. Under closer scrutiny, though, they look more like unanticipated products of crisis-management than preconceived tenets. Modernity itself looks more like an enforced adjustment to a novel and unforeseen condition, that a contrived ‘project’. Modernity emerged as involuntary, no-choice response to the collapse of the ancient regime – a type of order which did not, need not think of itself as an ‘order’, let alone as a ‘project’. It can be narrated as a story of long and inconclusive escape from the great terror which that collapse brought its wake. The name of the terror was uncertainty, lack of understanding, not knowing how to go on.” – (author’s own (highlits?) … )
—> “The Panopticon is a type of building designed by English philosopher and social theorist Jeremy Bentham in 1785. The concept of the design is to allow an observer to observe (-opticon) all (pan-) prisoners without the prisoners being able to tell whether they are being watched, thereby conveying what one architect has called the “sentiment of an invisible omniscience.” – from: Lang, Silke Berit. “The Impact of Video Systems on Architecture”, dissertion, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, 2004″ – [from: prison accessed on 20.10.2009]

Baudrillard, Jean; Guillaume, Marc. (2008 ed.) Radical alterity. Trans. By Ames Hodges. (Cambridge, Mass and London: MIT Presss)
Page 112: — making a reference to Sartre’s Being and nothingness: “—Intelligence of the world, the self and the Other is an open, borderless intelligence. Here the Other is understood to be partially irreducible to the self, eternally incomprehensible (Segalen), both radically different and similar, or supposed to be. The Other is the source of the incomprehention that, instead of blocking thought, keeps it moving indefinitely, eliminating any hope of absolute knowledge. This intelligence of the Other should be understood as it is in the expression “intelligence with the enemy”. It is a limitless intelligence because it always leaves something behind: incomprehension.” – Marc Guillaume

Omniscience (or Omniscient Point-of-View in writing) is the capacity to know everything infinitely, or at least everything that can be known
about a character including thoughts, feelings, life and the universe, etc. In monotheism, this ability is typically attributed to God. The God of the Bible is often referred to as “The Great I Am,” among other similar names, which also incorporates His omnipresence and omnipotence. This concept is included in the Qur’an, where God is called “Al-‘aleem” on multiple occasions. This is the infinite form of the verb “alema” which means to know. In Hinduism, God is referred to as sarv-gyaata (omniscient), sarv-samarth (omnipotent) and sarv-vyapt (omnipresent) gyaata (knowing).
From: /ɒmˈnɪsiəns/)

“…everything we know about Solaris has come to resemble a mountain of disointed, incoherent facts that strain credulity”

We get to imagine the experience of the astronaut, realize the addition of doubt and question what we can give an account of with certainty – after Berton’s testimony, when a scientist concludes that Berton’s statements “appear to be the result of a hallucinatory compley brought on by the planet’s atmosphere, as well as symptoms of depression exacerbated by (the) inflammation of the associative zone of the cerebral cortex. This report is in almost no way corresponding with Reality.”

There is a strong political inuendo, along with the mentioning of the ‘interrogation’ of Berton.

“Orbital and Nuclear – The nuclear is the apotheosis of simulation. Yet the balance of terror is nothing more than the spectacular slope of a system of deterrance at the heart of the media, of the inconsequential violence that reigns throughout the world, of the aleatory contrivance of every choice which is made for us. The slightest details of our behaviour are ruled by neutralised, indifferent, equivalent signs, by zero-sum signs like those which regulate “game strategy” (but the genuine equation is elsewhere, and the unknown is precisely that variable of simulation which makes the atomic arsenal itself a hyperreal form, a simulacrum which dominates us all and reduces all “groundlevel” events to mere ephemereal scenarios, transforming the only life left to us into survival, into a wager without takers – not even into a death policy: but into a policy devaluated in advance.)” Beaudrillard, Jean. (1983) Simulations.trans. by Paul Foss, Paul Patton and Philip Beitchman. (Semiotext[e]: Columbia University) p. 58
“The nuclear system is both the culminating point of available energy and the maximisation of systems controlling all energy. Lockdown and control grow as fast as (and undoubtely even faster than) liberating potentialities. This was already the aporia of modern revolutions. It is still the absolute paradox of the nuclear system. Energies freeze by their own fire power, they deter themselves. One can’t really see what project, what power, what strategy, what subject could possibly be behind this enclosure, this vast saturation of a system by its own hereafter neutralized, unusable, unintelligible, non-explosive forces – except the possibility of an explosion towards the centre, or an implosion where all these energies are abolished in a catastrophic process (in the literal sense, that is to say in the sense of a reversion of a whole cycle towards a minimal point, of a reversion of energies towards minimal threshold.)” Beaudrillard, Jean. (1983) Simulations.trans. by Paul Foss, Paul Patton and Philip Beitchman. (Semiotext[e]: Columbia University) p. 74

3/ Why did he say that love was ‘unattainable’ to mankind until today?

If we regard ‘today’ as the moment of a person’s death, then     the answer appears clear: to Kris the only moment when we     can have a realistic perspective, and when we can relate       ourselves to the souls that we are connected to we understand Love. It is first from the perspective of his family, then of romantic love, then of the country and of the earth altogether… so that in the end it becomes the realisation that to show your emotion, recognition and respectfullness in front of Love you need to cross the boundaries of the individual… towards loving the collective.. and going beyond those differences mentioned in the prior post. It is at this point that the soul is in need of beeing redeemed; therefore we get to see the new life appearing; the new plant by the window… starting to grow, we get to hear the words ‘it’s time for you to go back on Earth’… and we see the ending image of Kris embracing his father at his feet, similar to the Rembrandt’s painting ‘The return of the prodigial son’. [image attached above, sourced from: http://www.milligan.edu/bible/PKenneson/return-prodigal-son.jpg ]

2/ To whom is Kris addressing his question/statement : ‘See, I love you!’ ?

‘… emphasis began shifting from “meaning” to “information”, from the construction of meaning to the processing of information. These are profoundly different matters. The key factor in the shift was the introduction of computation as the ruling metaphor and of computability as a necessary criterion of a good theoretical model. Information is indifferent with respect to meaning. In computational terms, information comprises an already precoded message in the system. Meaning is preasigned to messages. It is not an outcome of computation nor is it relevant to computation save in the arbitrary sense of assignment. Information processing inscribes messages at or fetches them from an address in memory on instructions from a central control unit, or it holds them temporarily in a buffer store, and then manipulates them in prescribed ways: it lists, orders, combines, compares precoded information.’ Bruner, Jerome. (1990). Acts of meaning. (Harvard University Press – Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, England.) p. 4

‘With mind equated to program, what should the status of mental states be – old-fashioned mental states identifiable not by their programmatic characteristics in a computational system but by their subjective marking? There could be no place for “mind” in such a system-“mind” in the sense of intentional states like believing, desiring, intending, grasping a meaning.’ Bruner, Jerome. (1990). Acts of meaning. (Harvard University Press – Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, England.) p. 8

 

Kris is gazing through the window at the ovean – if we consider the mirror metaphor then we can say that he is looking into his own soul. He is waiting for a confirmation after his afirmation, although it is rethorical. He is actually stating that he loves Life, he loves being human… he has tried to Love mankind but it’s as if it didn’t matter in the ‘eyes of mankind’. By comparing himself to Tolstoy he presents his attempt to approach a different view.

His conclusion though is that in the end Tolstoy’s affirmation is confirmed, that it’s difficult to embrace mankind as a whole because of all the differences. In the Library scene Hari is at one point stating that they ‘are all human but in different ways...’ this sums up Kris’s puzzlement, and presents the fact that the intrinsic quality of being human spans and is shaped individually. They each understand Lifde from a different persoective, have different goals, emotions, backgrounds, fears. While Solaris has the ability of metamorphosing ‘itself’ into all the various ‘alien characters’; Visitors – a human being can find trouble understanding the person close to him, even the person that he loves the most. The subtlety is very deep here, but manages to create the contour of Solaris when compared to Kris – the man.

 

 

 

 

1/ Why does Kris feel the need to reassure himself that ‘what is indispensable to life’ cannot also be harmful to it?

Psychological data and human values: “Full humanness can be defined not only in terms of the degree to which the definition of the concept ‘human’ is fullfilled, i.e., the species norm. It also has a descriptive, cataloguing, measurable, psychological definition. We now have from a few research beginnings and from contless clinical experiences some notion of the characteristics both of the fully evolved human being and of the well-growing human being. These characteristics are not only neutrally describable; they are also subjectively rewarding, pleasurable and reinforcing. Among the objectively describable and measurable characteristics of the human specimen are –
1. Clearer, more efficient perception of reality.
2. More openness to experience
3. Increased integration, wholeness and unity of the person.
4. Increased spontaneity, expressiveness; full functioning; aliveness.
5. A real self; a firm identity; autonomy, uniqueness.
6. Increased objectivity, detachement, transcendence of self.
7. Recovery of creativeness.
8. Ability to fuse concreteness and abstractness.
9. Democratic character structure.
10. Ability to love, etc.”
Maslow, Abraham H. (1968). Towards a Psychology of Being. 2nd edition. (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold) p. 156

By presenting a ‘dismal’ and ‘suspect’ perspective of Life, Kris is defining his anguish. His observation regards the experience of Love, and its implications regarding abandon and loneliness. The human qualities of fragility are not only physical, they are also psychological. We cannot point a finger on the source of suffering when we experience sentimental ‘pain’, yet it is a unique quality that man can experience.

What are the metaphors of the film and what archetypes do they relate to?

Metaphors and Archetypes:

“As with dreams, memories and fantasies, metaphors and archetypes are also part of the continuous, complex and diffuse nature of our everyday experience. They are concepts which are fundamental to all art forms. Many film-makers find that the very first idea or inspiration for a new project often comes into their mind in the form of an image that is also a metaphor. The metaphor grounds the idea in visual form and frequently acts as guiding light throughout the writing and fim-making process. (…) A metaphor is a compressed similarity. In film it is an image or sound which has both a literal meaning and at the same time suggests another meaning through resemblance, implication or association with something else. The power of the metaphor derives from the relevance and compression of the comparison. (…) It is through metaphor that we experience depth, complexity, insight and most importantly, unity – the way all things interpenetrate. This process of recognition and identification clarifies and affirms what we feel our experience to be and connects us to the larger whole. This connection with something much larger than ourselves and the specifics of our unique experience, through the microcosm reflecting the macrocosm, can feel like the point where art and transcendental or spiritual experience meet; they are both addressing similar needs, concerning wholeness and unity.
An archetype is an image which is both a metaphor and a microcosm of a myth (a myth, by definition, is an archetypal story) which has recurred although in many guises, throughout history and has a universal meaning. Jung, whose understanding of the human psyche was largely based on the concept of archetypes, described them as ‘the instinct’s perception of itself or as the self-portrait of the instinct’*
Freud, who referred to archetype as ‘archaic remnants’, also recognised their significance when he placed the Oedipus myth, which embodies some of our most familiar archetypes, at the heart of his psychoanalytic theory. (…) The hero is one of the most common archetypes and is the focus of numerous myths, ancient and modern, irrespective of culture. The hero myths tend to have a universal pattern: a miraculous but humble birth, his early proof of superhuman strength, his rapid rise to prominence or power, his triumphant struggle with the forces of evil, his fallibility to the sin of pride, and his fall through betrayal or heroic sacrifice that ends in his death’**”
*quoted by Jolande Jacobi, Complex Archetype Symbols in the Psychology of C.G.Jung, trans. Ralph Manheim (Princeton UP, 1995) p.36
**Carl Jung ed. Man and his symbols (p.110) from: Potter, Cherry. (2001) Screen Language. From film writing to film-making. (Methuen – London) – p. 48-50

From the opening scene through the end we can identify key ‘details’ that connect images with broad ideas. The observations can be made regarding the idea navigation; air; the balloon that the child is holding, proceeding to the zeppelin gravures; making a reference to both human inventions, progress of technology and the concept of ‘treasuring’ an image/ a memory of the past…
Connecting the journey with another key element is the exact name of the invention that is used for travel in space: the hydroplane. Water (a ubiquitous chemical substance that is composed of hydrogen and oxygen and is essential for all known forms of life) is a recurrent element in the movie, with its emphasis as nurturing life and the evolution of life. It is manifested in the rain on Earth, moment when we can compare it to the emotion of sadness and its drops with tears – the regret experienced when saying good-bye [the the father, to the childhood house, to the planet and its diversity].. and in the vastness of the ocean on Solaris. Despite the name and its solar implications, this aura addresses the ‘enlightenment’ role of the experience, while its true surface – liquid stands for the flexibility of manifestation [water manifests in three phases].

Tarkovsky is making use of every scene on a complex level, all is calculated to add to the general atmosphere and message of the film. An example would be the visual image of rain dripping on a nature morte along with the auditive sensation of the monotonous tap of the drops… shaping a cinematic metaphor on life, degradation of the material state, time, water and flow, unity, balance, contrast between the constructed/artificial state of matter (the porcelain) and the natural, perishable nature of material life. True to Tarkovsky’s wish that the audience experience the film sensitively we are ourselves ‘bathing’ in that rain, by empathizing with the character on the screen.

Kris is portrayed on a field of flowers [image above right: http://jamesbrownontheroad.files.wordpress.com/2008/03/solaris_1.jpg%5D. We are experiencing this setting in order to compare it with the desolation of Solaris, in order to understand the yearning for Earth’s rich ambiance. Shortly after this scene we get to hear Berton’s comment: “It’s so pleasant in here!”, this underlines the joy that man can experience in his habitat. The beauty of calling Earth ‘home’.

Earth also stands for the experience, the brief passing, and if seen as a ‘mountain’ and a ‘journey’ we can link it to the ‘challenge’ that experiencing Life bears.

From Berton’s account we hear of a garden, on Solaris, where everything was made of the same substance… and the initial reaction is that this image has to be artificial. This is because with human eyes we can differentiate the added qualities; the shades of the plants, the shapes, the scent of the flowers, the light reflected on the plants, etc… while on Solaris we cannot help but envisage a paper-cut garden, something with no flavour, a failed attempt to copy the Real; to copy Earth. Although all this is an understandable reaction, let us not forget that Tarkovsky is using this image to raise a question, maybe that question is: do we project our experience, some previous knowledge before we even get to experience it directly? Also, if we were to look at this from a physical point, we would come to realize that even here on Earth, ‘everything is made of the same substance’ but we do not realize that we are limiting our perception by looking at the core of material manifestation.

“(Gaia) – the ultimate landscape angel and protector spirit for the planet who oversees all organic life, conscious-being evolution, the interconnected web of visionary geography and earth’s role and position in the solar system. … The nature of Gaia has confused western thinking for centuries because the ancient Greeks used the name to refer to different things. Gaia, as part of the original duality of Heaven and Earth (Ge), referred to the totality of cosmic matter, everything that was outside the Pleroma (the fullness of being). Earth, in this sense, encompasses galaxies and innumerable solar systems and planets. (…) Landscape angels, or egregors, maintain the geomantic integrity of a given landmass, from a small scale, such as a garden or valley, to larger, such as a mountain, state, or nation.” According to the Okanaga perception, Gaia was once a woman who became a planet” Leviton, Richard (2005) – Encyclopedia of Earth Myths. (Charlottesville, VA – Hampton Roads Publishing Company, Inc.) p.91-92

The idea of analyzing and sorting out the past is yet another key theme, appropriated in the situations and actions that Kris, but also the other characters, are facing. [ex. burning old documents and photos.. ]

We should also mention the presence of the dog, making his appearance in key moments/ scenes of the film, connecting mythology with the domestic setting.
The mother is wearing a white shawl and gazes into the horizon [image above left: http://www.ucalgary.ca/~tstronds/nostalghia.com/TheNews/crit1.jpg%5D … She is  clearly recognizing the distance between her and her son, and the fact that she will not get to see him again. We may feel that it is either a metaphor for Kris’s ‘real’ death, or an image of the mother’s feelings of loss; puzzlement which renders this scene so beautifully enigmatic.

The role of having to experience the death of one’s parents before one’s one death is to help one accept his condition, his inevitable end. The sadness that death, the irreversible action – brings in the human heart is the only inevitable experience in life. We experience it differently according to the attachment we have to the person that has ‘passed away’, but that doesn’t mean that there actually is a difference. That difference is subjective. Tarkovsky does not portray the parents in distress, he lets the action flow naturally, what he does include is silence in the ambiance of sunset – and the change of colour; a play between colour film and black and white.

(Underworld:) “in myths throughout the world, consistent mention is made of an underworld, an infernal, grim realm of the dead usually accessed through a cave, rock, lake or some kind of portal, and lying inside the Earth.”
“The Underworld in classical Greek and Roman culture was the place to which the culture hero such as odysseus or Aeneas journeyed to consult with the dead.”
“in Hindu astronomy, Shiva (in his earlier form Rudra) is associated with the star Sirius, our galaxy’s brightest star in thje throat of Canis Major, The Greater Dog. Rudra’s task is to guard the Dwelling of the stars-the entire galaxy. He is called Vastospati (Guardian of the Vastu) and the Hound of Heaven. Sirius is often called the Dog Star, standing for the entire Dog constellation. Hades has a dog called Cerberus, and it has three heads, is fierce and guards the Underworld. Osiris in Egyptian myth has his jackal-headed dog, Anubis. The essential equation is that the Underworld lord equals his Dog. They are equivalent, interchangeable figures just as shiva is the galaxy’s Dog-Star guardian.” Leviton, Richard (2005) – Encyclopedia of Earth Myths. (Charlottesville, VA – Hampton Roads Publishing Company, Inc.) p. 276

(Wasteland): A condition of spiritual impoverishment in which all of matter, including body, Nature, and planet, suffers due to humanity’s cumulative pain and existential amnesia about its own soul origins, purpose and history. Also known as Desert, Isfet, Koyaanisqatsi, Logres. The term was popularized in the early twentieth century in T.S. Eliot’s famous poem The Waste Land (1922), in which he characterized modern culture as a heap of broken images, a land of stony rubbish, a dead tree that provides no shelter, dry stones, a beating sun, and no trace of water – a desert. But Eliot got the term from medieval Grail sagas in which the Wasteland resulted from the misuse of a divine sword by the Fisher King.” Leviton, Richard (2005) – Encyclopedia of Earth Myths. (Charlottesville, VA – Hampton Roads Publishing Company, Inc.) p.287