Dueling Gods

Rating: Null/10 (29 September 2002)

Spoilers herein.
Since the disaster of `Sparticus.' Kubrick has centered each project on the mysteries of the narrative. Each film explores some theory or notion about the paths of storytelling and the fragility of those paths. Some get very abstract, like `Barry Lyndon,' where identities are adopted and plowed into nature. Some are rather simple, like `Shining' where the building is the author and teller of the story. But this is the most fun and in many ways the most interesting.
Here we have three warring gods. Each might be the one who has created this reality or part of it. Each might be the liar who is telling the story. None can be trusted, or can they? The three are the `real' reality in which we live, but that of course may be completely unfettered by any logic. In the sequel, Clarke has this reality subject to jingoistic forces. The new gods in the equation are two:
An extraterrestrial force. It may have even made us and how we see. It may have made all the reality we see as well. It is incomprehensible and capable folding time and consciousness. It may have made the story we are seeing.
Dueling with it are humans and HAL. HAL is a machine with reasoning skills beyond that of humans. Thrust into this aether of creation, it may have gained extra powers over what is real and what is not. It may be at odds with the humans or the aliens. It may not be, in fact the aliens may be machines and see HAL and siblings as the point of their efforts. HAL sometimes seems human, sometimes reason itself (Dr. Spock is the palest of imitations), sometimes in cahoots with either or both camps.
HAL might be telling us the story, a point underscored by his camera eye. We can't trust anything we see. But along the way, we see some pretty impressive things. It it hard to describe today when every third movie has a spaceship. But when this appeared, there was nothing at all like it. We were conveyed to a new and unfamiliar world, one created new for us, by whom and for what purpose we did not know.
Ted's Evaluation -- 4 of 4: Every visually literate person should experience this.