Great

Rating: 10/10 (1 September 2010)

the very reasons 2001 succeeds as a great film is not because it simply awes us, although moments do, but because, like all great films, it touches us, and deeply, in ways that many viewers are not even aware of, and none that require genius. The film succeeds in myriad little moments that all can relate to. I mentioned Dr. Floyd's banter with colleagues on the way to the monolith site, but there is the ecstatic 'first violence' in the murder of the rival man-ape early on. This is a vivid redo of the Cain and Abel myth, and how many of us wish we were so excited that we could toss an object into the air like the murderous man-ape does his bone weapon? Then there is Floyd with his daughter on the space videophone, and a circumspect Floyd being confronted by the smiling Russians. There is the scene where Poole gets a video birthday wish from his parents, and acts ho-hum about it. There is the scene where Bowman must release the recaptured corpse of his friend to outer space to save himself and the mission, and the very fact that, despite being on the mission for his cool demeanor, Bowman hurriedly forgets his space helmet to retrieve the body in the first place shows a deep connection between emotion and action that a didactic spoken resolution could never achieve. There are other moments, as well, but it is in these moments, often dismissed as banalities, that the film actually pulls the viewer into the tale. That so many critics miss these rather obvious connections shows just how attuned to lowest common denominator action, violence, and bluntly obvious things, most filmgoers are. Yet, it's the parallax of this lack against the grandness of the other parts of the film that pulls the mind like taffy between the antipodes. And it is this stretching wherein the film's greatness lies.
Another point that goes unnoticed is how and why, if HAL is so 'insane,' the computer simply does not turn off all oxygen and heat inside the spaceship when the two waking astronauts sleep? Perhaps one of them needed to be awake while the other slept and would have simply unplugged HAL, but it does seem that HAL's flaws in programming, the ones that make him more 'human,' also make him a flawed antagonist. And this is yet another aspect of the film, lost in all the talk of its grandeur, and superlatives, that is lost on most viewers and critics, yet part of the doll within doll within doll like nature of the film that buoys its claim to all time great status. There's simply no doubt, after watching this film, that both it and its creator deserve the label great. Unfortunately, too few, these days, even attempt such, whether Kubrickian or not.