Don't take reticence for profundity

Rating: 7/10 (8 September 2000)

It seems misguided to talk about "ideas" in Kubrick's films. I would say he had a genius for unsettling people, often by means of perverse combinations of image and sound. If, in our understandable urge to make sense of what stands before us, we imagine a clear intention behind these combinations, then we may have ascribed ideas to the artist that he never formed or perhaps never had the patience to form.
Or the courage. Because if we are right in guessing the meanings of these juxtapositions, meaning that each image corresponds to a specific notion of Kubrick's, why would he hold back that little hint that would make us sure we had happened upon the correct interpretation? I can only think it would be intellectual cowardice, either of having one's ideas shown up as simple, or of being understood too clearly as saying something ugly. I believe the second is the more likely.
Finding the emotional sources of a work is somewhat less speculative. I sense in this film a terrible bitterness toward man and a viciousness toward man the social animal, and a yearning for insulation from others, whether through distance, time, or a return to the womb.
After much thought I give this film a 7, due to the uninvolving performances, the tasteless use of "Zarathustra" as a cheap gag, and the fact that despite the unforgettable sights and sounds, this film (despite my having read the book) did not appreciably enrich my life. Neither did "Eyes Wide Shut".
I gave the similar but less impressive "Silent Running" a 4. "The Killing of a Chinese Bookie", a truly ambiguous picture that does not prompt or hint to the viewer, I gave an 8, despite muddy sound, no music, unpleasant characters, uninteresting set decoration and poor formal organization. Art that does not address life is only artifice, really no more than a curiosity.
It reassures me of the existence of a shared human nature that so many people grow so much meaning out of Kubrick's rocky soil.