Profoundly simple

Rating: 10/10 (10 October 2000)

Part Greek drama. Part Zen koan. What else can be said that hasn't been said. In my mind great theatre should provoke not just entertain. No question that 2001 has succeeded there. Great films like great literature force me to think and or rethink. If for no other reason, the development of the monolith theme throughout the film provides a vehicle to ponder the very stuff of the universe. One comes away looking skyward and wondering. In light of discussions in the fields of physics and philosophy about the meanings of existence, human vs tool/machine, Big Bang vs Steady State theories, space, time and matter continuum, Chaos theory, quantum cosmology, the final segment of the film makes quite a statement. Like Zen or Taoism, Kubrick made a film that is profoundly simple, yet like life it is for most of us very difficult to get through or to understand, except in a kind of flash of discovery--thus the final images in the film.