FILM

Solaris
Dir: Andrei Tarkovsky
Mosfilm Studios / Sovexportfilm, 1972
DVD release: Criterion Collection 2002

Solaris is hailed as the Russian answer to 2001: A Space Odyssey. But director Andrei Tarkovsky envisioned it more as the anti-2001 movie. The film tells a tale of love, desperation and confusion. It explores the fine line between what's real and what isn't.

Based on a novel by Polish author Stanislaw Lem, Solaris tells the story of cosmonaut and psychologist Kris Kelvin, who is sent to a space station orbiting the planet Solaris. Kris is investigating the mysterious death of the station's doctor and the bizarre mental problems plaguing the other residents. It soon becomes clear that all is not right aboard the space station when Kris meets his wife — who has been dead for seven years. He soon discovers that the planet Solaris possesses some sort of power that turns repressed memories into physical form.

Solaris explores the idea of reality through dark sober colours and long, still cinematography. The eerie, empty space station is claustrophobic. All that exists here for Kelvin is the woman he loved. But she's just a memory, or is she?

Through slow, sustained pacing Tarkovsky builds a mood of bleak uncertainty. This is a hauntingly beautiful film that has garnered international cult status. The film isn't for those looking for a fast-paced sci-fi flick; rather an introspective observation of man's connection with memory. It was the winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the 1972 Cannes Film Festival.
— Edward Cole

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POP
Songs of Experience
David Axelrod
Capitol, 1969

Few people are familiar with David Axelrod. His name — as cool as it sounds — usually doesn't ring a bell for most music fans. But Mr Axelrod is an influential and award-winning producer, as well as a talented and highly underrated musician. A good sample of what Mr Axelrode has to offer can be found in his album, Songs of Experience. It's the followup album to his earlier release, Songs of Innocence, in 1968.

With this album Mr Axelrod chose to set William Blake's collection of poems to music. He set out to capture the melancholy and mysticism of the work through elaborate orchestral arrangements. The music, almost epic in sound, rose from the ashes and climbed to some unattainable climax. A very serious work, Songs of Experience also played up a more pop-jazz oriented sound. The result is a deep grove that hits your soul.

Mr Axelrod's claim to fame was his stellar production on the albums of some of his contemporaries like Stan Kenton and Lou Rawls but his capacity as a solo musician shouldn't be underestimated. With Songs of Experience he constructed a poetic album that wove together a variety of sounds and styles.

During the 90s, urban musicians began sampling some of Mr Axelrod's classic tunes. Thanks to the likes of DJ Shadow and Lauryn Hill, Mr Axelrod's music was resurrected. He still remains one of the more obscure treasures of the funk-soul era.
— Abigail Sevigny

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BOOK

PORTNOY'S COMPLAINT
Philip Roth
Vintage, 1994
(originally published 1967)

Hilarious, hysterical, heretical, but probably the best H word to describe Philip Roth's 60s classic tale is horny. The novel is one long therapy session, during which Alexander Portnoy spills out his sexual angst, Oedipal longings and Jewish guilt to a silent analyst, Dr Spielvogel. The book is as heartfelt as it is lewd — Alex wants to help the downtrodden every bit as much as he wants to get lucky. Mr Roth fuses Alex Portnoy's twin obsessions into a singular portrait of young American manhood after the Second World War. But mostly, he's blessed us with a page-turning laugh riot.

Alex's parents, Jack and Sophy Portnoy, loom large. Jack, an insurance salesman serving Newark's poorest, is a martyr to his immoveable bowels. Sophy, the book's redheaded Jocasta, tuts and kvetches throughout the book, and portrays herself as her family's and apartment block's angel of mercy — "She would telephone all other women in the building drying clothes on the back lines — called even the divorced goy on the top floor one magnanimous day — to tell them rush, take in the laundry, a drop of rain had fallen on our windowpane. What radar on that woman!" Alex writhes through adulthood, grappling with injustice, WASPs and religion, and finally meets his match in equally depraved girlfriend, known as The Monkey.

Time may have faded the book's controversial edge — it was widely viewed as both autobiographical and, like most things, a corrupting influence on America's youth when it was first published — at least it hasn't faded its laugh-out-loud comic appeal.
— Elliot Stone

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