No longer in the monochromatic lights and darks, rainbow hues literally explode across the screen, as the pod careens through blinding iridescence. Images from creation mythology abound. It all comes to a sudden screeching halt in a surreal white room. When the monolith appears in his white bedroom, as he feebly lies in bed, it is now a black door, a threshold experience, a gateway to death. Kubrick shows, in his beautiful movie, that although the human experience is one of eternal struggle, with the brain at war with the heart, there is always spiritual regeneration.
Violence is part of our past, and too often part of our present.
Works Cited Bachelard, Gaston. The Poetics of Space . Duke UP, 1987. The Inner Reaches of Outer Space . Gods in Our Midst .