2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY

THURSDAY 5 OCTOBER AT 6:30PM

Country USA/UK Running Time 141 mins Format 35mm Director Stanley Kubrick Screenplay Stanley Kubrick, Arthur C. Clarke Director of Photography Geoffrey Unsworth Producer Stanley Kubrick Cast Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood, Douglas Rain Print Source Warner Bros. Website www.warnerbros.com

When astronauts uncover an enormous black monolith on the moon that sends a piercing message to Jupiter, a voyage across the solar system to uncover the mystery behind the message begins. To assist the crew on their long voyage is HAL9000, a fully functional spaceship computer mainframe with artificial intelligence. HAL is able to learn, think, feel, and react to different situations in the same way as his human creators. Unlike humans however, HAL is designed to be free from the capability of making human errors and even takes pride in this advantage. But when astronauts Frank Poole and Dave Bowman learn that HAL is malfunctioning, they decide to shut him down only to be confronted by his dangerous need to remain in absolute control of the mission.
A lot of critics, both professional and self proclaimed, bitch and moan about how slow the film is, completely missing Kubrick’s objective of purposefully creating the feeling of limbo and infinite vastness. But I guess after being subjected to the super sonic light speed of Han solo’s Millenium Falcon and Captain Picard’s Starship Voyager, one may lose the patience in sitting through an “outer space” movie where everything moves so slowly and where no aliens are blown to bits by lasers. But this film isn’t about aliens, or defying the laws of modern day physics, it’s an epic space opera/satire about dehumanisation and humanity’s failings in playing the dangerous game of God.   JV

book tickets for this screening


back to schedule

FESTIVAL HOME