2001: A Space Odyssey- Beauty is the word!

2001: A Space Odyssey is a 1968 science fiction film by Stanley Kubrick (who happens to be my favourite director as well). Being my favorite film, I have recommended this it to almost everyone I know. This blog is more like an answer to those who found this film slow-paced, and for those yet to watch it, you may continue to read this as a disclaimer to the film-

I'll give you a word- 
Beauty 

Beauty is an under-rated concept. Sure, you'll often see nice photography and so on in films. But when did you last see a film that contains beauty purely for the sake of it? There is a weird belief among cinemagoers that anything which is not plot or character related must be removed. This is depressing hogwash. There is nothing wrong with creating a beautiful sequence that has nothing to do with the film's plot. A director can show 15 minutes of spaceships for no reason than that they are beautiful, and it is neither illegal nor evil to do so.

'2001' requires you to watch it, in a different way than you normally watch films. It requires you to relax. It requires you to experience strange and beautiful images without feeling guilty that there is no complex plot or detailed characterization. Don't get me wrong, plots and characters are good, but they're not the be-all and end-all of everything. There are different kinds of film (this being the best of all), and to enjoy '2001' you must tune your brain to a different wavelength and succumb to the pleasure of beauty, PURE beauty, unfettered by the banal conventions of everyday films.

'2001' is primarily a technical film. The reason it is slow, and filled with minutae is because the aim was to realistically envision the future of technology (and the past, in the awe inspiring opening scenes including an amazing jump cut sequence). The film's greatest strength is in the details. Remember that when this film was made, man still hadn't made it out to the moon... but there it is in 2001, and that's just the start of the journey. To create such an incredibly detailed vision of the future that 35 years later it is still the best we have is beyond belief - I still can't work out how some of the shots were done.

The Official Trailer

The film uses invisible but powerful forces to manipulate the plot but perhaps the most overwhelming one is the picture's vision of man... In Kubrick's fantasy, the Golden Age of man was a neglected instant between a man-ape's exaltation at discovering the first weapon and a nuclear-powered spaceship floating in a graceful orbit around the Earth. Man has indeed evolved As a spectacle "2001" assaults the mind, eye and ear, with stimulating images and suggestions. We are surrounded by a totally believable futuristic environment.The film is filled with brilliant sequences and extraordinary moments: The first interesting minutes in which the story of the apes is told visually, without a single line of dialog; the zero-gravity toilet with its great list of instructions; the stewardess defying gravity by walking the walls calmly upside down; the frightening moment when we realize that HAL is reading the astronauts lips; the magical alignments of Sun, Moon, and Earth; the "Starchild" returning home to charm the orb. "2001" is filled with poetic imagery: the view of the Sun rising over the Earth; the tossing of the bone into the air in slow motion; the slow images of the giant spaceship revolving in a cosmic ballet. "2001" is also a work of great visual acuity. It allows us to view more than the mystery of existence and destiny implicit in every man. Its end troubles many viewers as they demand clarity where there can only be mystery. They insist upon an answer where there can only be a question. Every viewer had a different explanation of the mysterious end of Kubrick's film. But for those who can accept mysticism, the climax is deeply moving. 

"2001" is unique among films in content and scope. The cinematography is out-of-this-world, the special and visual effects are breathtaking, and the classical music is sublime. Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey" is art in the highest sense, like Leonardo da Vinci's "Mona Lisa", or Van Gogh's "The Starry Night". It is actually more than that!