My Mind Is Going

Rating: 9/10 (15 March 2008)

An inexplicable perfect monolith is discovered buried beneath the surface of the moon. A second, much larger monolith is identified in Jupiter's orbit and the spacecraft Discovery is launched to investigate. As it approaches the location, the ship's supercomputer starts to malfunction, threatening both the success of the mission and the lives of the astronauts.
This marvellous movie is almost more than just a movie; an incredibly intense, ethereal, mindblowing, near-religious experience. Its themes are the hugest imaginable - the nature of existence, mankind's evolution, technology and death, and visually it is arguably the most oustanding film ever made, a stunning succession of perfectly crafted eye-popping images. It's a work of art which raises the bar for what a movie can be to a level that has rarely, if ever, been equalled. For someone like me, who enjoys classical photography, science-fiction stories, thematic visuals, existential concepts and challenging films which encourage the viewer to think, it's just the best. Discussing the film's many mysteries - is the monolith a cosmic alarm-clock, does it directly inspire Moonwatcher to evolve, why does Hal malfunction (Peter Hyams' excellent sequel, 2010, provides a neat explanation for this), what exactly happens to Dave in the end - are much better discussed with friends over a drink than in a review, except to note the movie's amazing hypnotic power. A lot of pretentious films were made in the sixties (La Dolce Vita, Week End, Easy Rider), most of which are fun but look terribly dated. This movie, despite its age and now being set in the past, looks as sharp as ever, and its aura and influence continue to grow. In technical terms, the film is peerless. Its development of special photographic effects techniques - all of which were closely supervised by Kubrick personally - is legendary. Specifically, it pioneered the use of front-projection mirrors (all of the apes and animals in The Dawn Of Man were shot in a studio), highly detailed model work utilising (non-computerised) motion control, and the slit-scan animation process used for the Stargate sequence near the end. The spaceship shots look as good as (and I would say better than) the latest CG techniques, but what really makes them so spectacular is the length Kubrick holds them for, elegantly spinning his camera into and around the craft with beautiful, dizzying skill. The film is also chock-full of astounding physical effects, typified by the amazing control room in which Dave and Frank spend most of their time, which was a forty-ton revolving set built on a centrifuge. The final masterstroke is Kubrick's inspired use of his rough-cut spot score of classical music, which is the perfect accompaniment to the beautiful images. The combination of vivid music and visuals - particularly sequences like the Johann Strauss Blue Danube / Moon Landing are uniquely harmonious. There are too many memorable scenes in this film to mention, but I think my favourite is when Dave murders Hal in the blood-red CPU room by slowly removing his memory circuits, as Hal emotionlessly regresses into infantile insanity - it's perhaps the most astonishing and original death scene in cinema. I always consider this film a great test for movie lovers. If you admire and enjoy it, you're a true cinephile. If you think it's boring, slow and confusing, you've missed the point and need to go back to watching TV commercials, which you know and love. Written by Kubrick and legendary science-fiction author Arthur C. Clarke, very loosely based on the latter's 1951 short story The Sentinel. Trivia - the little girl who answers the videophone is Kubrick's younger daughter, Vivian, who later made an excellent on-set documentary about The Shining, which is a must for all fans of the great man. On viewing this film, it's difficult to find words to describe my admiration of Stanley Kubrick's directorial genius. There just aren't enough superlatives to describe his visual flair, complete focus and total lack of compromise. Here is a man trying and succeeding in reinventing the structure and form of cinema. In terms of artistic comparison with his peers, he equates to something like Verdi, Mozart and Beethoven rolled into one, when everyone else is Barry Manilow. His film, 2001: A Space Odyssey, is a masterpiece, a joyous celebration of the mysteries of existence and one of the greatest movies of all time.