Retro Film Review: 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

(source: tmdb.org)

A few days ago, the people of the world had some opportunity to rest from the usual depressing news about coups, wars, disasters and presidential adulteries because the world media finally turned their attention to more serene and heavenly subjects. One of those subjects is the US space shuttle Endeavour and its mission with the aim of connecting space modules – building blocks of the International Space Station. This news story invigorated many Space Age enthusiasts, but also filled their hearts with sadness. Their beloved Space Station, even when finally built and fully operational in a few years, would be far from fulfilling their dreams. Most of those dreams were inspired by a future envisioned in 2001: A Space Odyssey by Stanley Kubrick, the most influential and unique work ever made in the history of the seventh art.

In the small world of cult cinema, 2001 is somewhat overshadowed by other cinematic giants which are either more popular or pleasing to the audience, either general or cult, or simply more "earthly" to the mainstream critics and film scholars who dictate what should be the artistic summit or not. Another thing that makes 2001 overlooked is the fact that its time might be somewhat passé. Thirty years ago, space exploration was a novelty able to catch people's imagination and inspire idealistic visions of a bright future for all mankind. These days, almost nobody pays attention to space shuttles and satellites unless they crash, and materialistic considerations impede any ambitious plans for human presence in space. To the casual observer, 2001 might really be discarded as the relic of an age long gone, a product of idealistic and naive minds, something that cannot be understood by today's cynical and nihilistic viewers, especially those of Generation X.

Misunderstanding, however, is not a new problem for 2001. Even during its premiere the movie was generally misunderstood – critics panned it because they didn't understand it, and the audience, inspired by the contemporary psychedelic trend, loved it for entirely the wrong reasons. Even one of the movie's authors – screenwriter and famous science fiction novelist Arthur C. Clarke – admitted that even he couldn't know what the movie was all about. In the next thirty years countless articles, essays, books, documentaries and scientific studies would be written with the sole intent of trying to answer those questions; despite their best efforts, the audience would still remain as confused as during the premiere. However, the deliberate leaving of unanswered questions benefited the movie and helped it to survive as a cult favourite for three decades. Mostly because 2001, unlike most other movies, has a unique ability to affect its audience – whether they like the movie or not, or whether they understand it or not, they can feel they are experiencing something grand and magnificent, even if they cannot find the proper words to describe it or explain it.

The only thing that can be explained more or less coherently is the plot. The movie begins with a prologue set roughly 4,000,000 years ago in East Africa. A small band of prehistoric ape-men, including Moonwatcher (played by Daniel Richter), lives a poor, short and brutal life, plagued by famine and under constant danger from predators. One day Moonwatcher discovers a big, black, shining monolith. The artifact of supposedly alien intelligence inspires Moonwatcher to use his own intelligence – he discovers the bone as a weapon, which leads to boars as a new source of food for his tribe. After defeating the rival tribe in a war for water, Moonwatcher symbolically throws the bone into the air. In the next shot – often regarded as the most spectacular transition in the history of cinema – the bone transforms into a space satellite that roams the Earth's orbit 4,000,000 years later. It is only one of the objects in Earth's orbit, full of different spaceships, including one that carries Doctor Heywood Floyd (played by William Sylvester), an American space bureaucrat, to the Moon. Floyd is set to oversee the investigation of the monolith found on the Moon's surface. The monolith emits signals to Jupiter, and 18 months later, the US spaceship Discovery is sent to investigate the fourth planet of our solar system. The spaceship is manned by two astronauts – Frank Poole (played by Gary Lockwood) and Dave Bowman (played by Keir Dullea) – but actually controlled by HAL 9000, a computer equipped with artificial intelligence (voiced by Douglas Rain). During the voyage, the allegedly infallible computer begins to make mistakes, which forces the human crew to think about disconnecting it.

Even those who don't like the lack of clarity in 2001 are forced to admit that, on the technical side, this film really deserves to be praised as one of the milestones in the history of cinema. Its director, Stanley Kubrick, made great movies before (Lolita) and after (A Clockwork Orange, filmed three years later, is actually preferred by mainstream critics), but in this film he used all his talent to make something really remarkable. First of all, the $10 million budget – something that looked like a fortune and was almost unimaginable for science fiction at the time – was used to create a very detailed world of future supertechnology. Along with professional production and costume designers, Kubrick employed the talents of futurologists and real-life scientists and space vehicle designers, which resulted in a high level of plausibility and authenticity for a futuristic movie (the real-life instruction for a zero-gravity toilet is just the most common example). Another important element was the groundbreaking special effects; Kubrick, together with the legendary Douglas Trumbull, introduced many revolutionary techniques that helped the audience suspend its disbelief and make studio-recreated space, including zero gravity, look authentic. Thanks to those effects, 2001 looks as convincing now as it looked for the unsuspecting audience thirty years ago (and despite the fact that we couldn't see such a level of technology in real-life 2001). Finally, Kubrick was also revolutionary in using non-original music; his choice was superb and some themes – especially those by Johann Strauss ("An der schönen blauen Donau") and Richard Strauss ("Also sprach Zarathustra") – would stay forever associated with his powerful imagery.

The actors of the movie remain mostly forgotten, and that shouldn't surprise anyone, because this is a movie of sights, sounds and ideas and not of great memorable characters. Most of those characters are either hidden behind ape-like costumes (Moonwatcher), or presented as boring bureaucrats (Floyd) or astronauts turned emotionally numb by the boredom of their job (Poole, Bowman). Ironically, it is the non-human character, HAL, that brings real human dimension to the events of the movie by expressing genuine emotions. Furthermore, there are relatively few words spoken in the entire movie – and most of the lines are trivial and serve only to illustrate the banality and boredom of life in the Space Age. The only lines that entered movie lovers' collective memory are HAL's famous last words.

2001 is a movie as close to perfection as one movie can be. Those who deny it such status are probably those who question its plausibility. We are less than three (one, if you consider the 1999 segment) years away from the world presented in the movie, and most of the movie now looks dated or over-optimistic. Our space technology seems decades, if not centuries, behind that presented in Kubrick's vision. Our fashions and social customs have changed drastically compared with the late 1960s; the Cold War, which provided material for one of the more banal conversations in the movie, is a thing of the past. Our computers haven't developed artificial intelligence. But are all those false predictions reason enough for us to downgrade 2001? Is the Orwellian vision moot because the world in 1984 lacked Big Brother? Should we discard Blade Runner when November 2019 comes without replicants in sight? The answer should be no. The movie was authentic by 1968 standards, and it was very plausible, taking into consideration contemporary trends. 2001 is a movie that presents a future that probably won't happen, but also a future that might have happened. Even as a false vision, 2001 remains a powerful one, able to inspire us to ask questions about our existence, our true nature as human beings and, finally, our future.

RATING: 10/10

(Note: The text in its original form was posted in Usenet newsgroup rec.arts.movies.reviews on December 9th 1998)