From Evolution to Exploration to Artificial Intelligence to Extraterrestrial Life to other Dimensions of Reincarnation. . .

Rating: 10/10 (14 June 2017)

. . . this is NO such film that shies away from Allegorical Philosophies.
The year was 1968.
America was in the midst of The Space Race with the Russians. Man had yet to set foot on the moon, but the Apollo program was in full swing. The world was only a year away from taking One small step for man.
There was probably never more attention and fervour surrounding space exploration than during that specific period in time. And that year, Stanley Kubrick released 2001: A Space Odyssey.
One of the most ambitious films of all time.
2001: A Space Odyssey begins with The Dawn of Man.
In a fifteen minute segment to lead the movie, Kubrick shows a tribe of apes before and after they're visited by an obsidian obelisk.
Prior to seeing the obelisk, the apes are shown living amongst the pigs, picking fleas, attacked by a leopard, and having a territorial shouting match with another pack of apes over their water hole.
They're animals.
The film famously features extensive dialogue free segments with filled with classical music. In fact, whenever music is used, there is no dialogue, and anytime there's dialogue, there is no music. As opposed to most films, which feature original scores, 2001 features famous classical pieces, legendarily opening with Richard Strauss Thus Spoke Zarathustra, and here as were brought into space, Johann Strauss IIs waltz, On the Beautiful Blue Danube.
Were taken to an orbiting space station, and follow a man on-board. He briefly contacts his daughter via videophone, and then sits briefly with some contemporaries. In stark contrast to the flea picking, bone wielding apes, these people are cordial and civilised. Polite. Sophisticated. A group of international doctors sharing a drink in a lounge area on a space station.
The talk turns serious. The lunar substation Clavius has fallen out of contact. Those attempting to reach it are receiving error messages, and it recently denied a request for docking. There's suspicion of an epidemic outbreak.
Having the computer in control of every aspect of the mission turn on you is a dangerous proposition. A fact that the passengers on-board learn the hard way. Yet the most frightening moments of HALs arc don't lie in the cold, calculated actions HAL takes against the humans on Discovery One, but in the plaintive begging he makes for his life when hes facing shutdown.
Im afraid, and I can feel it HAL keeps repeating over and over. Very human emotions. Was HAL indeed alive?
But 2001 isn't a movie about a conflict with an on-board computer. Nor does it end when HAL is taken offline. Instead it continues when Dave, the final crew member alive on Discovery One, encounters the obelisk.
What proceeds is famously open for interpretation. An extensive barrage of flashing lights and visual effects comprise a sequence signifying time travel? Inter-dimensional travel? Evolution to a non-corporal being? Death? Kubrick refused to state explicitly. No dialogue accompanies this final segment of the movie. It unfolds like a work of art in motion.
It culminates in the sudden arrival of the pod in an all white room, decorated with pieces of fine art, containing a bed and a dinner table. There, Dave sees himself. Aging, dying, evolving.
Thus Spoke Zarathustra sounds again as an embryonic being of pure light looks out over the surface of the Earth from outer space.
This is a movie that challenges its audience. It has incredible aspirations. It paints across an enormous canvas, poses the deepest of questions, and then gives no easy answers. It shows, it does not tell. It makes the viewer think and feel, without telling them what to think and feel. This movie is the antithesis of modern movies that cater to the lowest common denominator. It is unafraid of pushing the boundaries of the medium, and breaking away from convention. Even with effects works over 40 years old, the movie still has the power to astound the viewer with its beauty.
Imaginative. Impressionistic. Evocative. Thought Provoking. Astonishing. Epic.
As Kubrick said he didn't want to spell out a verbal road map for 2001 that every viewer will feel obligated to pursue or else fear he's missed the point, just add "quotation mark" on that 2001 and you'll get the point.