One of the best SciFi ever made.

I really don't want to see it again

A rich and breathtaking work of profound thought and beauty. This is not a film you simply watch, it's a film to experience. Tarkovsky never made films merely to be watched, he made films to submerge yourself within, films that challenge the viewer to think beyond the material. His films are a journey through the inner man and a quest for the spiritual nature of life, and with his films, he invites us to join in that journey and quest. His films don't tell you what to think, they challenge you to think, to think about existence, beauty, and art. He never set himself the task of explaining anything, he was a spiritual observer, and his films are philosophical meditations on the meaning of life.

This is one of the key films that shaped my understanding of what cinema is. The pace of it may be gradual, but it's never tedious. The pacing is all part of the effect as it allows you to meditate on the philosophy and sheer beauty of the film. Ingmar Bergman once said of Tarkovsky that he was "moving freely and fully at ease" in a room that he had always wanted to enter. I understand this sentiment, as Tarkovsky did achieve something that is beyond the realm of say, Bergman. He created a world on film that goes beyond what can just be seen or explained but felt deep within - a world deeply rooted in the poetry of life, the ground between reality and dreams, the inner and outer spaces of human beings. And not to say that Bergman can't also take us here, but Tarkovsky takes us further into a place where nature and spirituality are in unity. Faith and reason aren't at odds here but interwoven.

In this film, Tarkovsky deals with man's technological progression and goal to explore outer space, but our failure to understand our own state of existence, that is to say in other words, our looking outward and forgetting to look inward. The men of the space station are experiencing a unique phenomenon brought on by a mysterious space ocean which brings to form their subconscious, and each reacts to this in their own way based on their personal psychological/spiritual state. The protagonist here is a man in despair over his dead wife, who's committed suicide. Upon arriving at the station, she reappears before him because of the phenomenon. First, he rejects it because it's further troubling to his conscience but soon accepts her, because one, she represents what he needed from his wife, and two, because it's easier to accept the reappearance than cope with reality. Through all this, the viewer is allowed to glimpse into who this man is, as well as reflect on ourselves.

That is part of the film's immense power, it challenges the viewer to question themselves in the situation of the space station; what are your greatest memories, desires, and fears? What appearances would you face? Would they be happy, depressing, dark, etc.? How would you react to, and handle them? These are some of the questions I've walked away asking myself since watching it. It's definitely a film that demands your patience and attention, but in the end, it's a hugely rewarding experience and a film I'll continue to return to over the years because it takes us into the purest realm of cinema, a realm that allows us to reflect on ourselves and our state of existence.