Solaris

Solaris (1972)
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069293/]

The Gist:
Solaris is a film that evokes a bizarre poetry about the nature of humanity, of how we connect to other human beings, of our sense of purpose. It follows a psychologist to a space station left in ruins where a crew of 93 or so (I forget the actual number) has dwindled to just two. What has happened to the entire crew is something of a mystery, though we have two cases we know of that we can draw conclusions from (1. a recent Suicide and 2. some rescue mission to the alien planet the station orbits). To make a long story short, the alien planet has some strange consciousness that the station is studying and apparently has the ability to manifest human beings from the astronauts subconscious, thus creating a now immortal replication of the protagonists wife who keeps trying to kill herself and can't. Is this sounding awesome to you yet? Because it should. However, all the fascinating aspects of the plot aside, this film is one of the better films I've ever seen due to all the bizarre risks the director takes: switching back and forth between black and white, strange lyrical sections where the plot evaporates like when you sit and watch some cacophonous ballet of traffic for ten minutes, and so on and so forth. Most importantly, it broods on the nature of life and creation, and this duality of the mystery of our own creation when contrasted with the self-aware creations of the alien planet.