If Michealangelo had been alive in 1964...

Rating: 10/10 (10 February 2006)

Then this is the film that he would have made. I'm lucky enough to have passed through several stages in my appreciation of this film. First time I saw it I thought it hopelessly overlong and as dull as ditch water. I'd heard good things, obviously, but it struck me as being images for the sake of it and a rather anaemic progression through a rather trivial plot. Subsequent viewings, however, slowly revealed those things that most of the reviews I had read had raved about. Even if the movie is not coupled with a reading of the novel (which, as we know, tells a similar but non-identical story), there is a plethora of detail that one encounter will not reveal, like the whole life-cycle/evolution thing, the attempt at objectification of the mystery of human spirituality and the importance of having a nice lunch; it's all there in glorious Cinerama.
About a dozen viewings in, I watched it with my wife, who'd never seen it before and wasn't really in to the arty movie scene, and that gave me an opportunity to see it as the dated piece of 60's optimism it also always was, and that both cheered and amused me and I realised it was a movie that probably did have everything after all. I'm still happy to classify it as a true work of art, and not simply a technological marvel, though - its coverage of universal themes is unmatched in the sci-fi cannon, the soundtrack is awesome and I shall always be grateful that my wife forced me to have fantastic sex for three hours after I made her endure 'a really stupid film'.
Extremely recommended.
Hayfax_Jo