treatise about humanness and evolution visualised by a master director

Rating: 9/10 (16 October 2014)

This film is for me the most perfect film I have seen and it is my second most favourite. Nevertheless, it is not a film I watched as many times as other easier films.
I don't watch the film as a science fiction action film. I watch 2001: A Space Odyssey as a philosophical, spiritual, enigmatic, and mystic treatise about humanness and evolution visualised by a master director.
For me the scenes with the apes are especially fascinating. And the bone-shattering scene "dawning of man" is for me the most iconic scene I have ever seen in film. The transition from bone to space-station is nearly as iconic. Both visualise human evolution, from vegetarian ape to tool-using meat-hunting human, from stone-age to space-faring modernity. It symbolises the rising abilities of mankind. And the final scenes even reach further than the current state of man-kind.
Moreover, in this film the selection of music for each scene is just perfect for me. I love the chorus music for the black "stone". The choice of the opening fanfare of "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" by Strauss is goosebumps-rising perfect for me. Or the waltz "The Blue Danube" for the rotating space station and the space voyage.
Yes, there are some parts which need patience, but those just symbolise the slow life of earlier times and the vast land our few ancestors roamed. I'm reminded of Koyaanisqatsi (1982) there.