Cinematic Shockpiece In Space Tripping

Rating: 9/10 (10 January 2006)

40 years and counting...look how well this movie has held up to the flatulent times that have been. To put things in perspective this movie happened at a culturally important time in the modern world (definitively American) history. Arthur C Clarke's 2001: A Space Odyssey begs to be read and then watched on the screen. For all of us who have been abandoned to pirated junk on listless Chinese CDs must have a dekko of the original on-screen or at least on DVD. The chills are still there 40 years on.
A definitive genre-pioneering masterpiece of unmatched depth and intellectual implications...but why?
A two-and-half hour sci-fi flick without a shot of violence or cyberpunk (back then it didn't exist). Very little dialogue. A cast that can be counted on fingertips. And a soundtrack that makes you feel you are at the Berlin Philarmonic's Strauss renditions. This movie is something of an experience and definitely not a moral science lesson of good-evil that MTV style pop-culturists and present-day Presidents believe in. This movie is a heavy-weight, brush aside those so-called blockbuster prints that seem to vie for 15-25 aged-somethings high on peer-pressure syndrome. Bubba go back to school, not high school, not film school but art school. Kubrick genuinely drives the point home about why sci-fiction could be at best mankind's most sincere effort at art? How else would feel about a space-time situation that Dr Bowman was tripping into? Well your laws of physics don't hold good, so where is the scope for explanations about the climax? This movie has done a remarkable job of giving the viewer a chance to participate in one of the most humbling experiences that mankind cannot afford - SPACE.
Kubrick's movie is a poor-man's ticket to space. In space, time is more of a liability. 2 1/2 hours of such a cinematic experience shouldn't try to bet against it. 2001 ASO is a masterpiece of believability and physics as its creators have gone into the minutest details of perceptive canvas to bring across a true work of art. In contrast the last 20 minutes or so of Dr Bowman's space-time trek (some prefer it to an enlightening LSD workout) is nothing but cinematic honesty and imagination that physics cannot explain. How else would you explain time-warps? If you expect Star Wars type sci-fi then well 2001 ASO will disappoint. Because Star Wars is like canned juice. (Not to say Star Wars is bad cinema) but 2001 ASO is more like fruit on the tree. Eat it or leave it, its as natural as it gets, no preservatives or human interferences.
Almost every sci-fi movie worth its salt (after 2001 ASO) must have read into this Clarke/Kubrick classic for some inspiration and also knowledge about space. Space is a lonely, cold, timeless, unfeeling, inanimate, persecuting, inspiring and infinite emotion as seen in this movie. We can never answer some questions like who created the Universe? Whats? Ifs? Buts? Whys? Why Nots?
Given this movie's limitations of scientific data at its time, it is indeed more of a gigantic effort. A kind of buzz on the scifi genre timeline. Something akin to the apeman's mind being ''Seeded'' for intelligence by the black and mysterious monolith. This movie is indeed a ''Seeding'' of minds that wish to venture into the fantastic-space and end-of-the-dimensions attitude of an all-inviting mind. LSD did help, so did the generation of mind-altering tastes, man was stepping on the Moon - the timing was right. The movie has thus garnered its cult status.
If you ask me the movie is an awesome adaptation of the book. But if you read the book first and tripped through the movie later, then you will understand at least the essence of the almost abstract formula of the ending. 2001 has no ending because it was the beginning of man's ultimate trip in space-time. Clarke wrote well beyond 2001 and many of his later works did run into critical brickbats. But there is no denying that A C Clarke is the man who probably invented Pink Floyd type science fiction.
Just like space, this movie is too abstract to define in terms of possibilities or implications. That I presume was Kubrick's idea for it too. Hollywood seems to afford such explanations with aliens who walk - talk - and do evil like us. After you watch 2001 ASO, you will begin to wonder if ''intelligence'' itself is so unique and man himself is so really miniscule to the events that are shaping the Universe.
Add to all this the artistic flourish of the movie with its sweeping Strauss-orchestrated epic ''Thus Spake Zarathustra'' or the intimate sounds that intertwine with the hollowness of space. This tension in space has never been filmed to such an extreme degree of emotional precision without any graphic violence. Its the kind of ''ultra-violence'' the American PsyOps would mete-out in their propaganda wars to culture-shock religious crackers like the Taleban to get them out of their ''oyster'' er caves. Same effect for commercial movie-bred audience. They might mistake it for 2 1/2 hours of nothing. Hello!?! Nothing happens in space like you think bubba!
A movie (if ever there was one) to add to the list of movies that could possibly have changed mankind's perception of The Bigger Picture. Think you know your physics? Space-time graphs? Exclusion formulae? Rethink, go watch 2001 A Space Odyssey.
Watch ''A Clockwork Orange'' another Stanley Kubrick masterpiece if you liked this film.