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Review: 2001:A Space Odyssey is one of my favourites. At first I bought it on video, and having pressed play on the video, fell promptly asleep. I awoke and couldn't tell the difference between the scene I had awoken to and the one I had fallen asleep at. Space, a spaceship, and the Blue Danube. Back to sleep for me. However, the next day, a little more awake, I braved watching it again in my living room on a widescreen TV. From start to finish, I was completely transfixed. The film is undoubtedly confusing, and if you read Kubrick's biography, a lot of time is dedicated to the production of this picture - including the process of writing it. Apparently, a lot of the film had to be cut for time restraint, and as a result, explanatory sequences were lost. So don't worry if you don't understand. You're supposed to watch it and try to make out what you can - even possibly develop your own individual theories. Maybe Kubrick didn't intend for that, but it's best to do so with such an ambiguous picture (Mulholland Drive another example). Anyway, anyway, the film is incredible if you enter the appropriate frame of mind for watching it. If you are expecting an elaborate story with emotion and edge-of-your-seat thrills, rest for half an hour whilst re-setting your brain and then prepare yourself for a film that revolutionised the way stories could be told. Also bare in mind that this film was made almost ten years before star-wars, and the effects are undoubtedly superior.
The film is purely beautiful. There is almost no dialogue, and this helps isolate the characters and increase the sense of desolation in space. I don't want to give too much away in the way of story, but it genuinely does become interesting, and mysterious.
You just have to stand the long sequences, the silence, the darkness, and appreciate the beauty, the music complementing the scenes, and the actual size of the film as a whole - it is a HUGE production for its time. Every single frame of all the effects shots were stenciled by hand - at Kubrick's demand. If you don't think yourself one for standing long films without hollywood stories, stay away from this one. otherwise, watch it, get confused, think about it, develop your own idea, and then watch it again to just appreciate it. you can spend all the time you want analyzing the metaphorical politics of the picture, as you can with almost every picture made! - but some might argue that the story is too insubstantial for such debate.
Genuinely, it is a great film: Stunning to look at, great to listen to, and interestingly thought provoking. |
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