Film title: Solaris (Солярис)
Year : 1972
Director: Andrei Tarkovsky
Country: USSR (Mosfilm)
Cinematographer: Vadim Youssov (fourth and final collaboration with Tarkovsky)
Music / Sound Design: Édouard Artemiev
Cameras: ARRI, Mitchell BNCR
Format: 35mm, alternating color / blue-tinted monochrome
Plan duration: ~5 minutes
Filming locations: Akasaka and Iikura, Tokyo (Shuto Expressway, Inner Circular Route), September-October 1971
Initial project: to film the futuristic structures of the 1970 World Expo in Osaka (delayed, eventually abandoned)
Burton (Vladislav Dvorjetski) leaves the country dacha. He gets into his car. And for five minutes, you watch a highway. Not a movie highway, no chase, no danger, no dialogue. A real highway. Neon-lit tunnels. Cloverleaf interchanges. Elevated overpasses. The camera is inside the car, in the passenger seat, filming Burton's face in bluish monochrome. Behind him, the concrete structures flash by. There are no words. At first, there is no music, only the sound of the road, the hum of the engine, the whoosh of air in the tunnels. Then, slowly, something changes. Electronic sounds seep into the mix. Synthetic textures, barely perceptible at first, are layered over the traffic noise. The rumble of asphalt mingles with frequencies that don't belong to this world. The highway becomes a launchpad. The Earth begins to fade away. And the camera doesn't cut.
Why this scene is iconic
Tarkovsky was asked why he included five minutes of highway in a science fiction film. He replied, "So that impatient viewers would leave the theater at that point." It's a joke, but it's also true. Tarkovsky doesn't want impatient viewers. He wants viewers who are willing to watch time pass.
This shot is the gateway between two worlds. Before, you were at the dacha: the grass, the water, the trees, Kelvin's father, the dog. After, you'll be in the space station: the metallic corridors, the screens, the ocean of Solaris. Between the two, there's this tunnel. Five minutes of concrete, neon, and mechanical noise. By refusing to show space travel (no rocket, no launch, no star field), Tarkovsky uses the Tokyo highway as a substitute, the modern city as an already alien space. Artemiev's sound design effects the transition: the road noise transforms into electronic frequencies, and when the scene ends with an abrupt cut to a silent pond, you're already gone. You've left Earth without even realizing it.
To a Soviet audience in 1972, Tokyo's elevated highways were truly futuristic. Highway interchanges, light tunnels, stacked concrete structures—none of this existed in the USSR. Tarkovsky didn't need to build the city of the future. It already existed: it was called Tokyo.
How they filmed it
Tarkovsky had originally planned to film the futuristic structures of the Osaka World's Fair (Expo '70), but the trip was delayed and the pavilions were being dismantled when the crew was finally able to travel to Japan. Plan B, filming Tokyo's highways, became the final plan.
The sequence was filmed in September and October 1971 in the Akasaka and Iikura districts, on the Shuto Expressway (Tokyo's elevated highway system). Cinematographer Vadim Youssov filmed from inside the car, a subjective point-of-view shot that keeps Burton's face in the foreground and the highway in the background. The camera doesn't move inside the vehicle; it's the car that moves, and the world that passes by.
The film alternates between monochrome with a blue tint (Burton's face, the car's interior) and color (certain exterior shots of the highways). This alternation is not indicated and does not follow a transparent narrative logic; it seems to mimic fluctuations in perception, as if Burton were oscillating between two states of consciousness during the journey.
The sound design is at the heart of the scene. Artemiev has built a soundscape that begins with realistic road noise—engine, tires on asphalt, traffic—and gradually introduces synthetic electronic textures. The process is so gradual that you don't perceive the exact moment when reality shifts into artificiality. The mix also manipulates the pitch of the sound according to the car's acceleration: as the vehicle accelerates, the frequencies rise. The effect is akin to a takeoff without a rocket.
Solaris was the last collaboration between Tarkovsky and Yusov, following Ivan's Childhood (1962), Andrei Rublev (1966), and this film. The two men parted ways due to creative differences, a schism Tarkovsky would repeat with his next film, The Mirror, when Yusov was replaced by Rerberg. For certain sequences in the space station, production designer Mikhail Romadin created a room of mirrors that allowed Yusov to hide inside a mirrored sphere and become invisible in the final shot. Akira Kurosawa, visiting Mosfilm Studios during filming, expressed his admiration for the station's design.
What to observe when reviewing it
The emergence of electronic sounds (~2:00) Focus on the soundtrack. At first, there's only road noise. Try to pinpoint the exact moment when Artemiev's first synthetic frequencies seep into the mix. You probably won't be able to; it's designed to be imperceptible.
The alternation between color and monochrome (the entire shot) means the stock changes aren't driven by the narrative. They occur within the sequence like fleeting moments of awareness. Look to see if you can identify a pattern; there isn't one.
The final cut to the pond (~5:00) After five minutes of concrete, neon, and mechanical noise, Tarkovsky abruptly cuts to a silent shot of a pond. The contrast is physical. Your ears decompress. It's the same effect as an astronaut experiencing gravity after weightlessness, except you're the one feeling it.
Did you know that?
The other legendary scene from Solaris, Kris and Hari's levitation in the space station, accompanied by Bach's Prelude (BWV 639) and surrounded by Bruegel's Hunters in the Snow, is often cited as one of the most beautiful moments in the history of cinema. But unlike the highway scene, it's not a single continuous shot: the sequence is edited with cuts to details in Bruegel's painting, flashbacks to the family video, and a return to the weightless lovers. The highway scene, on the other hand, is raw, a single movement, a single moment, a single sonic transformation.
Tarkovsky wanted a film without music. Artemiev recounted that he had suggested subtly introducing orchestral elements, and that Tarkovsky only accepted music when he felt he had failed technically, when purely cinematic language was insufficient to convey emotion. In the highway scene, there is no music in the classical sense, only mutating sound. It is the scene closest to his ideal.
The Tokyo highway shot is part of a recurring theme in this collection: the boulevard shot in Code Unknown (Haneke, 2000) uses the same technique, a continuous tracking shot along an urban space, where time itself becomes the subject. The difference: in Haneke's work, time serves morality. In Tarkovsky's, time serves transcendence.
Sources
Vadim Youssov, interview (Criterion DVD/Blu-ray supplements)
Eduard Artemiev, interview (Criterion supplements)
Andrei Tarkovsky - Sculpting in Time (1986)
Wikipedia - Solaris (1972 film)
366 Weird Movies - Solaris analysis (detailed description of the highway scene)
Open Culture - "Andrei Tarkovsky's Solaris Shot by Shot" (2015)
Offscreen - "The Natural and Modern Worlds in Solaris" (thematic analysis)
Frame Rated - "Solaris (1972)" (production context)
Deep Focus Review - "Solaris: The Definitives" (Deleuzian analysis)
Moviefied NYC - "Solaris: A Momentary Defiance of Gravity" (levitation analysis)
Digi-Con - "Returning to Humanness through Sci-Fi in Tarkovsky's Solaris" (Artemiev on the use of Bach)
ShotOnWhat - Solaris (1972), technical specifications
IMDB - Solaris, FAQ and trivia
Also read:
Long take The Mirror (1975) https://www.plan-sequences.com/categories-de-plans-sequences/le-miroir - The other Tarkovsky in the collection: the same camera drifting through time, but inside a childhood home rather than on a Tokyo highway
The Long Take and the Psychology of the Viewer https://www.plan-sequences.com/blog-plan-sequences/plan-sequence-psychologie-spectateur - Why five minutes of concrete and neon make you leave Earth without realizing it: the long take as an imperceptible manipulation of consciousness
