This, it seemed to me, fit Kubrick more and more closely. Yes, themes can be discerned in his work, and since his death the winkling out of Kubrick themes has bloomed into a small critical industry. Certainly violence and cynical bleakness are patent in his work, but they seem structural conveniences to him rather than burning concerns. From 2001 on, with longer and longer periods of time between pictures, he became centered on the solution of problems, technical and narrative, rather than on creating work aimed at the responses of the viewer. This is a long way from design, which is a beauty and blessing in art, a means of affecting people.
Formalism is a tyranny even when self-imposed, as it usually is.
It is much too aptly the finale of a declining career. Everything in Kubrick that had been worming through his career, through his ego, and through his extraordinary talent swells and devours this last film. It is a long slow exercise in self-admiration, in the formal fulfillment of film problems that he had set himself at the expense of the audience's involvement. Begin with the title. It is completely meaningless before and after seeing the picture.