misunderstood (SPOILERS)

Rating: 10/10 (3 April 2004)

Stanley Kubrick liked the idea that reality is ultimately ambiguous. When you see someone do something but doesn't say anything, you can only speculate why that person did it. Even if the person tries to explain why, the explanation might be incomplete, might not capture the entire essence of the moment. In 2001: A Space Odyssey, Kubrick's thesis is that the events you're seeing on the screen are related to each other, and that Kubrick probably has a definite interpretation of them, but he's still not going to tell you his interpretation, because it would undermine the reality shown on the film.
Some people say there is very little plot. Let's walk through the 'The Dawn of Man' sequence. We see some apes, presumably our evolutionary ancestors, barely subsisting on some barren wasteland (Africa?). We see that they're vegetarian and that they coexist with some pig creatures. We see them organized in clans and conducting yelling contests for control over a precious pond of water. Not only are the food/water scarce, there are vicious predators to constantly worry about. Then one day they see a strange foreign object. They're at first afraid of it, but gradually they become drawn to it, as if it is subconsciously communicating to them. At the same time the sun and the moon become aligned, suggesting that the object is extraterrestrial. Shortly after this incident, one of the apes discovers that a leg bone can be used to kill the pig creatures, thereby affording a new source of food. This is quite a big mental leap for an ape, so presumably the extraterrestrial object somehow made the apes smarter. We see the apes turn from vegetarians to omnivores. They all have plenty to eat now and they've taught each other how to use bones as weapons. We now return to the two tribes bickering at the water hole again, but this time one tribe is equipped. The more powerful tribe decides to use their power to kill the leader of the weaker tribe. So while the weapons help the apes survive in this harsh environment, they also allow the possibility of war amongst themselves. And so this state of growing technology continues, to this day.

Judging from the above paragraph, I don't know about you, but it seemed like Kubrick definitely had a story to tell. His way of telling it is to juxtapose related events, and it is not difficult to guess what the relationship could be (at least not for 2001:A Space Odyssey). But it does require speculation, and to allow the viewer the time needed to become inspired to speculate, the film must run at a slower pace than is normally expected in other movies.
Often if we watch a lot of a certain kind of movie, we tend to see their similarities and tend to expect to see these characteristics when we watch new movies. For example, the vast majority of movies contain lots of dialogue that directly reveal the plot, so we expect this sort of thing when we watch a new movie. In addition, we tend to compare the movies using these similarities as criteria; for example, we evaluate the quality of the dialogue and how cleverly it is used to drive the plot. But these evaluations are based on the assumption that our preconceived expectations are not only the norm, but in fact the way things *should* be. I disagree with this assumption, and my unqualified enjoyment of 2001: A Space Odyssey is proof of this.