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Starring Best Actress Academy Award winner Marlee Matlin (The
West Wing), this part documentary/part narrative film blends
elaborate visual effects and animation with interviews on
themes related to the body, mind and soul. What The Bleep
Do We Know?! poses the most fundamental of questions including
What am I doing here? What are thoughts made of? What is reality?
The sensational impact of the film on its audience internationally
has stunned critics and distributors alike...
I'm
sorry, but I just didn't get the point of What the Bleep
Do We Know?! The idea was great; to have a serious debate
about consciousness and how we perceive the world around us.
Sadly it is handled by a group of people who seem to know
little about film making, let alone the topics raised.
It
would seem that the producers came up with the idea, went
around to several self-proclaimed specialists in various fields,
interviewed them and then were so baffled by the resulting
hours of footage that they had to create a really poor narrative
to tie everything together. Then, in-between this story, they
dubbed over the odd soundbite which, more often than not,
are taken completely out of context.
The
press release compared this movie to Super
Size Me and Fahrenheit 9/11. I don't
think so. These two movies both set out to inform the audience
without patronising them. What the Bleep... just chucks
random thoughts out hoping you'll get confused and go away
thinking that you've watched something intellectual.
Now,
if we'd have had the experts centre stage and then had short
segments were actors were shown in similar environments, it
would have worked. But no, we get some half thought out story
about a deaf photographer. What is all that about? She'd have
to be deaf to put up with her annoyingly chirpy lodger...
but I digress.
It's
not that I am a lowbrow sort of guy myself. There are some
arguments here that I used to love indulging in as a student
(albeit late at night with a bottle of wine inside me). Like,
why do a lot of woman who finally escape from abusive relationships
end up going out with another man who treats them just as
bad? This general theme is tackled in this DVD, but not very
well.
Also
I like to know who the 'experts' are before I start taking
them seriously. While we are given all of the interviewees
credentials at the end of the movie, it would have been much
better to have had them when they first appeared. It's nice
to know whether it's a nutter or a scientist that's trying
to shove their theories down your throat.
There's
no real structure to the discussions (that's why the silly
photographer storyline is slung in there - to make us believe
that there is cohesion to the narrative). I read and loved
Mark Rowlands's Philosopher
at the End of the Universe, even if I did disagree
with several points (see my review), so it's not like I didn't
get the arguments being discussed here. Actually it was interesting
to see that this DVD disagrees with one of the philosophical
arguments in Rowlands's book - that we can not affect our
future as it is already predetermined by all the events in
our past. What the Bleep... believes that we can. But
then that's philosophy for you isn't it? There's no right
or wrong theory. You can claim just about anything and be
heralded as a genius.
On
a technical point of view I was a little lost to see a trailer
for the 2 disc DVD release... As far as I'm aware there is
only a 2 disc set for sale (but then we were only sent the
one DVD for review - so I can't even comment on the extras).
Not only that, but this was an unskippable trailer that you
are forced to watch the entire way through.
In
short this DVD was too disjointed to actually throw anything
out for the general viewer to grab a hold on. I very much
suspect that anyone who enjoys this release doesn't really
have a handle on philosophy at all. In fact the only really
impressive thing about this release was that Star Trek:
Deep Space Nine's Quark (Armin Shimerman) makes a couple
of very brief appearances.
But
then, what the bleep do I know?!
Darren
Rea
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