A film for introspective, silent audiences

Rating: 10/10 (6 February 2001)

A most arresting moment in this film occurs at the jump-cut from the floating bone to the floating satellite. It is the type of powerful juxtaposition that can be done only in the motion pictures.
For me, watching 2001 is similar to holding your breath and trying to observe yourself in relation to your world.
I think one message of the movie is that human ego, due to the lack of foresight, has been developed prematurely.
This film, made with such deliberateness and precision, tries not to opine explicitly anything about humans or the rest of the universe. It is an inert presentation laid out continuously enough to inspire the human imagination to tell a story easily, but sparsely enough to allow many stories to be told, consistent with the images and sounds. I think this is the spirit of the scientific method: what story fits the observations? No matter how clever a particular story may be, however, sometimes the most honest statement one can say about a mystery is the statement of the mystery itself.
I think, many aspects of this movie, including the 'plot', editing, and...the ineffable style, are original to this day. Also I am beginning to think that, unfortunately, '2001: A Space Oyssesy' is the only science-fiction film; other movies are at most ordinary dramas with science fiction elements.