Pari's Blog

(director: Stanley Kubrick; screenwriter: Arthur C. Clarke)

I first saw this film when I was twelve. It is deeply spiritual film, in the sense of abstractly spiritual. It was the first to set the precedence for real philosophy and metaphysics in science fiction films. When I first watched it as a kid I remember thinking of the Monolith as some sort of unfathomable advanced state of being that we would eventually evolve into one day (also viewed it as something incarnated into specific points in the history of our evolution to take us there, much less a “living” alien artifact millions of times more evolved than us). I saw the monolith as a thing of supreme beauty and a source of spiritual significance. The book takes you deeper into a metaphysical feel. I like to relate to it through the philosophies of Hinduism, that gives us insight and methods to getting know the cosmological nature of our very existence.

The film is decades ahead of it’s time considering it was produced in 1968, every detail… the lunar base, Discovery, HAL, etc. look so realistic even by todays technology.