2001st review- a celebration of cinematic experience by Master Kubrick

Rating: 10/10 (19 September 2019)

Imagine yourself a 60s fella walking to the theater, buying a ticket directly at the box office, sitting in hall and right in front of you a big friendly giant 70mm screen. Once the lights start to go out, the film starts from this moment to predict your future. How'd you respond? That's how I imagined this piece of masterpiece all along, and I loved it. Do you get me? Let me spell it for y'all: L.O.V.E.D. I.T. , period.
Let me confess something before I start. When I first saw 2001: A Space Odyssey I was 14 years old or even 13, I don't clearly recall. Anyway, I begun to watch this and 30 minutes later, I turned out the TV. Want to know why? Brace yourselves: It was boring. I don't even remember if watched this film at all. Btw, I was a stupid teenager at this age despite of me being smart in studies, but still I didn't understand a thing in this movie. I was wrong. On my second viewing, which occurred on 28th August, it was a completely different experience. The moment I got finished watching this film, I exhaled. This is the moment I realized I was wrong. Stanley Kubrick created something different than his other pieces. Not ordinary, but something revolutionary.
2001: A Space Odyssey is a splendid work of art that's put science to science fiction and consider to one of the most influential films and genres in the eternal cinema industry for generations to come. It deals with the elements of human evolution, technology and artificial intelligence and terrestrial life. I might even say that it's a spiritual film in the way that represents man's relationship with the God or even higher. It's divided into 4 segments, and connected with each terrestrial reference. Kubrick's first project into Sci-Fi features all of his usual brands but its treatment different from his other pieces.
Although my thought is 2001: A Space Odyssey isn't going to be appreciated by everyone. It's a visual ride of stupendous art, attracting viewers to get sucked into a slow pace of metaphysically technical journey and raises some thought-irritating questions with allegorical meanings. What Kubrick fascinated me is the fact he left the ending open so the audience can draw their conclusions. Of course, 2001 inspired almost every film by far and will continue to do so as long as cinema still exists.
Stanley Kubrick's filmaking breaks almost every rule starting the appearance of human apes to the birth of Space Baby. No one can deny that the viewers are proposed by Kubrick's filmaking-magic. By doing so, he doesn't dare to simplify any detail, but to let the audience be involved around the film atmosphere and to solve puzzles.
Kubrick did a really good job on communicating with technical department. Speaking of tech, this what also made the film so successful and memorable. The cinematography is a a treat to anyone who appreciates photography, editing is correctly done, and visual and sound effects are innovative ahead its movies, in which using CGI nowadays are far from matching this. Even before the landing of Apollo, Kubrick never fails to impress where the moon sequence shot with such detail level. By the way, the screenwriter, Arthur C. Clarke, the author who wrote short story "The Sentinel" based on the film, claims that Apollo 13's critical line "Houston, we have a problem" was influenced by HAL-9000's line "Sorry to interrupt the festivities, but we have a problem", even the commander's ship was called "Odyssey".
The score by Alex North was absolutely captivating. Kubrick had also a bright idea to add respite for scores like "Requiem", "Atmospheres", "Lux Aeterna", "The Blue Danube" and more in the spacecraft and outside of it. Start from the overture, The marvelously main title "Also Sprach Zarathustra" combining with moon in the shadows implies great revelation, standing on the cusp of universal breakthrough. The bright blue orb of the Earth rose with the sun and left the moon out of frame. The music peaked, the title appeared and from here, everybody's life including me changed forever! The brilliance of "The Blue Danube" is how Kubrick managed to capture the dance, like coordinated movements of objects in space. Another score I adored was "Requiem". The use of György Ligeti's haunting "Requiem" inspired lots of film even trailers (for instance in teaser trailer of Godzilla 2014) and put on the first scene where apes first discovered of tools. Much like, the astronauts discovered a second Monolith on the moon and Dave discovered a third Monolith on Jupiter.
Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke imagined futuristic world that still rings true all these years with an intense and attractive screenplay. They're making a good example of "show, don't tell". They made sure to limit the dialogues, making room for plenty of subtext. Another thing that attracted me the most was the human voice, by Douglas Rein, of HAL-9000. Many people think HAL shows more emotion than any human character. This is a smart choice to opposite this because it takes away the cold mechanical nature of robot, and instead it gives you, the way I put it, WALL E. Stanley and Arthur manage to visually represent the mystery of the universe by monoliths, forcing the audience to draw their own conclusions.
All in all, 2001: A Space Odyssey is a big joke at any negative critic/member review, it's a big landmark in a cinematic history. No film can nail this masterpiece, made by a craft master filmmaker who made a career one brilliance after another. This film will be discussed forever and I mean forever, not a small detail will be missed. 2001 requires multiple viewings in the ultimate visually journey. Definitely recommend!
Score: (10/10)