Possibly the most important film of all time

Rating: 10/10 (31 July 2009)

I first saw this movie in my 8th grade science class at Maple Grove Junior High. I found it to be the most absurdly boring and pointless movie I had ever had to sit through. I was young, I was naive, and I had a lot to learn...
Now, upon second viewing, at age 24, it is easily, in my opinion, one of the most important films ever made. The story alone makes most other movies feel ant-like.
There are movies that are made to please an audience, and there are movies that are made to be a piece of art. In my opinion, this just might be the absolute greatest piece of abstract art in the form of film to ever be created thus far.
A few years ago when The Fountain came out, I thought I had seen the ultimate art film - but I had no idea what was sitting around the corner waiting for me with 2001: A Space Odyssey...
From the moment the movie starts, you're abrasively attacked with banshee-esquire sirens and a pitch black screen - you have no idea what's happening, but you are becoming a victim of the movie's concept. From the very beginning, you are not only watching a movie, but you are a part of it. For the remainder of the following 140 minutes, you will very slowly but tastefully witness some of the most powerful moments that could ever be imagined in the history of mankind - from the dawn of time, to what is imagined as the possible end... and beyond.
This is a movie that simply cannot be put into words. It's an abstract experience that everyone takes differently, unless of course you are a philistine, a non-intellectual, or if you simply have no interest in why or how we exist, then most likely you will take nothing from it at all.
I can say, it is a movie in which when it was over, I had no idea what had just happened in the end. But that's one of the brilliant aspects of it. I have my ideas, I have my theories, and I still have plenty of questions. It leaves you hanging in the best way.
I won't even go into it but this is certainly one of my new all-time favorites. I'll never forget the shot of the apes screaming at their confusing discovery for minutes upon minutes... after a few I began to get tense. I shot up and shouted with ascending volume, "what the **** IS THAT THING?????!?!" - that shot never leaves my head. And "that thing" is still the ultimate life mystery... or at least the best representation of it that I've ever seen.
I can't wait to watch it again.