Artimidor

In hypothetical 2001 auteur-duo Stanley Kubrick and sci-fi master Arthur C. Clarke take us on a unique journey into the unknown, leading us far out into the vast reaches of space, where man is all alone with himself. Or is he? For an ominous artifact excavated on Earth's single natural satellite, the moon, seems to suggest otherwise. The enigma of the monolith beckons - and points further out there. What hides behind the glassy slab composed of the inkiest blackness imaginable? Is the monolith a relic from a long-lost cosmic culture? Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe it serves as a sentinel, an extraterrestrial guardian to evaluate intelligent life, an alien yardstick to measure civilization, to supervise its genesis and progress. Or is it closer to a teacher, providing man with the missing link to what lies beyond, a rung to hold on to, so that a sometimes floundering race may evolve beyond? Have we come across a gateway to a first encounter, to - who could know? - even something... divine? - Questions abound: Who created this inscrutable object? And why, after so many years of resting buried, has it been activated, signaling... where to? The answer might transcend comprehension and thus mankind as we know it. We have arrived in hypothetical 2001, the year when everything is about to change.

Ambiguity is not "2001's" liability, but its forte. It is the main and heady ingredient Kubrick allowed to dominate Clarke's potent sci-fi cocktail of ultimate questions. Whereas the grand mysteries of life's origin and destiny are gradually diminished in Clarke's accompanying novel and even more so in the three succeeding books, Kubrick opts for a pure philosophical angle, studding it with iconic imagery. Ultimately, the viewer is left with facing the sublime alone; dropped right into the majesty that is the universe, on his way towards infinity. Visuals reign. Visuals supplemented by such diverse, seemingly contradictory soundscapes as György Ligeti's eerie "Requiem", Richard Strauss's epic "Thus Spoke Zarathustra", Johann Strauss's unforgettable "Blue Danube" waltz, and the sheer intensity of universe-wide eternal silence.

Almost unfathomable that we have to remind ourselves that Kubrick put this masterpiece on celluloid based on pre-moon landing data. So accurate is his dedication to scientific accuracy that the conspiracy theories about him having staged the actual moon landing haven't let up till this day. Then again, how disappointing that post-Kubrick filmmakers have mostly given up on taking a leaf out of his book where space is married with science in supreme beauty; instead, they deliver lackadaisical CGI-infested crowd-pleasing imitations and, if they have to say something at all, they drench them in pseudo-intellectualism. Looking back, one has to grant at least the follow-up to the mother of all space operas, "2010: The Year We Make Contact" (Peter Hyams/Arthur C. Clarke), that it is not a bad film. And yet, for what it's worth, it already looked dated upon conception. While full of monoliths, it lacks all things Kubrick, which condemns it to a mere footnote to the seminal original. "2001" is more than a movie. It's an epiphany. Mankind's third millennium starts with "2001", date and film, and with good reason.

A middle-aged man stumbles onto a picnic at the riverside. His face is recognized by the group as an acquaintance from twenty-odd years ago and the inital reserve turns to amity and embraces - and then back again, veering quickly towards alienation. For soon it becomes apparent that the guy isn't quite what he once used to be, whatever that was. Someone has to wrestle a mic from the newcomer's hand when a karaoke song gets out of hand, and eventually he's left to himself again, to the stranger that he is, to others, and himself. He plunges into the nearby river, thrashes about, screaming gibberish and, minutes later, climbs up a railroad bridge, where an incoming train ploughs over him.

The end? Yes. And a beginning. Chang-dong Lee's "Peppermint Candy" (1999) has the distinction that it starts off with its protagonist's suicide and is poetic about it in reverse. A though feat. And yet, odd beauty shines through the inkiest black, turning ever brighter. Starting with the point of impact of the fate-sealing express train, we travel back down memory lane - back Yong Ho's journey, Harold Pinter-style, a technique used also in more commercial fare like Nolan's "Memento" or Gaspar Noé's grim "Irreversible". We head to where it all began, flashback by flashback, a few years at a time until the very beginning. Every time a piece of the onion is peeled away, each time another bit of the puzzle is added, or withdrawn, see it as you will. Something crystalizes in the process, connected by images of the deadly train receding from the present: a character, for one, and the mirror image of a sociopolitical environment that plagued the last decades of Korean history. A hardened lost soul thus transforms into a hapless, unformed teenager, ignorant that his innocence is about to be molded into a shape he won't be able to recognize anymore as his own.

Chang-dong Lee is better known for his critically acclaimed tour-de-force "Poetry" (2010), located somewhere in terra incognita between alzheimer and rape, and the thinking man's thriller "Burning" (2018) - both masterpieces in their own right. One might also remember his daring, yet most accessible "Oasis" (2002) about an ex-con who befriends a girl with cerebral palsy, though it's not exactly a rom-com either. But his early work already has all the hallmarks of the accolade-winning favorites of the critics, and elements that will recur later, one way or another. All these films are about characters, about life and death, love of course, and not a few involve violence, murder, or, as in this case, suicide. Traditional themes, perhaps. Strong ones, sure. Too dark on first glance to justify an ending on an upbeat note. But the poet in Chang-dong Lee more often than not brings it out regardless: the light at the heart of it all, in this case by consequently following the railtrack back into its tunnel where it came from, and go from there - arriving someplace beyond.