CLASSIC SUNDAYS: 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY

2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (1968)

Director: Stanley Kubrick

Rating: 10

Welcome to Classic Sundays, today we'll celebrate the 50th anniversary of one of Stanley Kubrick's masterpieces, based upon the short story "The Sentinel" by Arthur C. Clarke, I present you: 2001: A Space Odyssey.

What's the movie about? Well, it's a tricky thing to explain it but basically this film shows how a mysterious monolith unleashes a series of events that affects mankind from the dawn of man until the far future where humanity has mastered interstellar travel.

This film is consideres as one of the most influential and most revered science fiction films of all time, if you check out on movies like Star Wars, Alien, and most recently Gravity and Interstellar you'll see the influence of 2001, which 50 years later still looks amazing. However it wasn't acclaimed as it was today when it released on April 1968. Critics and audiences were divided, some loved it for its cinematic quality and unconventional narrative, while others disliked it for its pacing and lack of dialogue.

Kubrick was a genius, and I think when he made movie he never saw it as a job for money but as a personal challenge he had to complete, that's why there were so many years developing his movies and that's why they were so greatly done. He was a perfectionist, always careful of every detail from shot composition, lightning techniques, actor's direction, art, visual effects, among other things. 

This movie is like a symphony, divide by four movements, including an intermission. The blend of image, sound and music is among the most beautiful things I've experienced in my life as a movie fan, the usage of Thus Spake Zarathustra and The Blue Danube are prime examples of Kubricks amazing direction, this film is filled with marvelous sequences that flow like a river, sometimes it makes you feel that your are indeed in outer space.

2001 is such a mystery, sometimes you want the answers to the questions raised by the film, but other times you feel like if you have the exact answers the magic of it would be lost, because there is not a definitive answer here. Some people may be bothered that there are not relatable characters, except for a robot which is HAL 9000, however it feels intentional because 2001 is pure visual narrative. I don't like it when everything is sucked into exposition and if film was made for something it was to show things, I mean, Didn't movies begin silent in the first place?

If you haven't seen the movie, I recommend you to do it, you need patience, it's not as dense as a Tarkovsky film but it certainly requieres attention to it, anyway, the great optical effects and miniatures along with the music should be more than enough to grab you. 

2001: A Space Odyssey is a beautiful experience that give the first steps for science fiction to become an A Genre, Stanley Kubrick gave us a legacy that continues to influence filmmakers through time, it would be so great that this film gets a re release on the big screen like IMAX where the new generations can experience the magic that some people had back in '68.

This was Classic Sundays, next week more reviews and the first entry of the Marvel Month, where I'll be revisiting Phase One in the MCU, thank you so much for your visits and if you liked this you can comment and share it, this blog isn't just mine, it's yours as well.