2001: A Space Odyssey (Re; 2018) (Dir. Stanley Kubrick, 2h 29m)

 
There are few films in the western cinematic canon that have made the impact on cinema as an artform as 1968's 2001: A Space Odyssey; from Star Wars to Alien to Blade Runner, 2001's visual, narrative and thematic influence scores across not just science fiction, but cinema as a whole. It is a film that needs no introduction, and, 50 years on, still casts a colossal shadow over modern cinema.

From its iconic, Strauss-scored earthrise over the Moon, and then sunrise over Earth, one of cinema's greatest opening shots ever, to its enigmatic final moments, 2001 is not only a study of what mankind has come from, and what it is now, but also what the future, both the imagined "future" of 2001 from 1968, and the future of humanity as a species, may hold. Between two shots of Earth, both Strauss scored, Kubrick explores the threat of technology in one of cinema's greatest villains, the exploration of space, the evolution of man, the existence of God, Gods, or higher beings' role in human evolution, all of which are themes as relevant today as fifty years ago, as mankind seeks once more to the stars, to create artifical intelligence, and to prolong its own existence beyond the fragile blue ball Kubrick bookends his film with. 2001 is the film that changed cinema. It is Kubrick, one of cinema's great artists, at his best.




Through its three chapters, moving from the plains of prehistoric Africa to the moon base in 2001 to space near the planet Jupiter, Kubrick's theme is clear; the evolution of man, man setting out into space, and man's relationship with the universe at large. These chapters are punctuated by the arrival of ominous, Ligetti accompanied black monoliths, first in prehistoric Africa, to the fear, then curiosity of apes that go on to wield bones as primitive weapons. Then, through one of the greatest jump cuts in cinema (paying homage to 1941's The Canterbury Tales' transformation of a hawk into a Spitfire) we are thrust into the future of 2001, where a second monolith is found buried on the moon.


From here, the film jumps forward eighteen months, to where Discovery One, and its mission to Jupiter; here, we are introduced to HAL, and the ship's captain, Dave Bowman, and, after HAL becomes increasingly erratic, killing the other four crew members aboard, Dave grimly shuts him down before the film enters its final act, with Dave encountering the third and final monolith, leading to one of the most spectacular, if esoteric endings in western cinema.

2001 is a film as arresting now as it was 50 years ago, as relevant, and astoundingly accurate in much of its depiction of a world then some 33 years hence, and just as accurate in depicting our world today. One can hear the voice of HAL, the cool emotionless trans-Atlantic tones of Canadian actor Douglas Rain, in Alexa, Siri, and countless other digital assistants (all of which, the children of HAL 9000, are quick to make jokes or references to 2001), as well as its influence upon another of cinema's great villains, Anthony Hopkins Hannibal Lecter. Whilst elements of 2001 are still far from our grasp, and in places, Kubrick's vision of the future are now charmingly retro, in others it's stunningly accurate, or close to being realised, a show of Kubrick's infamously fastidious research and attention to accuracy, in a race not just against release date, but against a moon-bound NASA.

2001 does not just push what the artform of film making could be about, but how it could look. Even fifty years on, the models, the technology, the film's entire look and feel is echoed in everything from blockbusters such as Star Wars and Trek, to the other masterpiece of science fiction, Blade Runner. Nowhere is this seen better than in the film's final act, Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite-nothing on screen before or since (with the possible exception of Tron has ever looked like the light gate sequence-small wonder that the film struck a chord with the late 1960s counter-culture shortly after release.

Yet, 2001, at its heart, for all its science fiction trappings, is a film about humanity, and its ascent from the dirt, to space, to the universe. It is a film about exploration, about man's relationship with the unknown; the more religious would argue it is a film in which mankind finds its way back to heaven-the monoliths, with their knowledge, their forbidden fruit, become a form of original sin, whilst others may argue that HAL is a continuation of the timeless fear, voiced by everyone from Frankenstein to Jurassic Park, that our creations will one day rise up and destroy us. Is 2001 a film simply documenting the rise of the ape into the man into a being beyond humanity? Does Kubrick, with his vast blackness of space, his nigh silent, classically scored masterpiece, wish to tell an allegory about man and his relationship with man or planet or god or technology?

The fact that we still ask these questions, why a film half a century old still holds an audience where few others do, why that black monolith and what it brings, and what it brought to the medium of cinema in visual and technical and thematic terms, tells us simply:

There is no film like 2001, A Space Odyssey. Nothing in the intervening five decades pushes the envelope like it. It stands, monolithic, not just inside its own genre, but in cinema as an entire artform. It is a film you need to see at least once in your life, on the largest screen possible.




Rating: Must See (Personal Recommendation)