Word: kelvin
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Cooling and expansion of the central core of energy occurred so rapidly, he said, that by 182 seconds after "time zero," the originally infinite temperature of the universe had cooled to 109 degrees Kelvin, and hydrogen and helium nuclei had formed...
...momentum as the latest cult film. Based on a novel by the Polish author Stanislaw Lem, Solaris has to do with mysterious goings on at a space station, staffed originally by a crew of 85, which has been drastically depleted under sinister circumstances. By the time a psychologist named Kelvin (Donatis Banionis) comes aboard, the station is populated by two disturbed scientists and a host of phantoms, including a dwarf and a nubile young girl in a blue nightie...
...yellow, oozing sea of the planet Solaris. In retaliation for radiation bombardments from the station, the sentient sea creates figures from the spacemen's sub conscious and bounces them back up to the station to haunt the inhabitants and drive them to suicide. Not long after his arrival, Kelvin receives a spectral visitor of his own: his exwife, who killed herself back on earth years before. Kelvin is immediately smitten by a lethal mixture of love and guilt, and his mission - and the fate of the space station - is imperiled...
...time, the changes from black and white to color and the rain falling strangely inside as well as out add to the effect. Still, some loose ends to hang unevenly. What, for example, after her first few appearances, happens to the girl in the blue nightgown? How does Kelvin, who starts out sleeping in his space suit, suddenly take possession of a pair of monogrammed pajamas? Some of these points may be straightened out in an extra 40 minute section cut out of this version. But if the "guests" originate in the men's subconscious reconstruction of their past...
Loose ends don't really detract, though, because the film's final clinching shot throws open all doors to analysis. Hari has allowed Sartorius to dissect her, leaving only a note, and Kelvin has decided to return to Earth, he approaches his home, where the film began, and in the doorway kneels at his father's feet, head buried in his lap, one of those poignant Bergmanesque poses. The camera begins to pull up and up, above the house, the trees, the adjacent lake, until we see the entire island surrounding the house, sitting--you guessed it--in the middle...