2008 Woodie Awards
What the bleep were they thinking?
David Moll
Issue date: 10/13/04 Section: A&E
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As I walked out of the theater, still coping with visions of singing peptides, still mulling over the myriad viewpoints on the power of human perception and simultaneously trying to remember where I parked, I came to the single conclusion that makes this review so trying.
"What the Bleep Do We Know" tries to unify too many disparate elements and everything suffers as a result.
"What the Bleep" bills itself as a film that illuminates, through the language of quantum mechanics, the power in how we perceive the world around us. The film asserts that we are selling short our ability to define our existence by our dependence on tactile, physical reality and by preconceived notions of what is possible.
This premise is very attractive. One can envision a discussion of how the laws of Newtonian physics are a poor fit at the sub-atomic scale. Such a film could then illustrate how these counter-intuitive phenomenon conflict with our understanding of more massive bodies. With a combination of expert opinion and proper computer generated illustrations, the film could explore the relevance of quantum physics within the world around us.
But this was not to be.
The film starts out with nameless interviewees questioning the basis of the physical universe. (They are identified at the end of the film, but more on that later.) The contention is made that were conditioned to define our existence in terms of tactile, physical and observable phenomenon. Given these parameters, we are predisposed to equate perception with reality. These notions seem reasonable enough. After all, Plato came to the same conclusions tripping over a rock.
But following these initial observations, and brief discussion of how the physical laws that govern large masses are no longer valid at the sub-atomic level, the film becomes bogged down in a fictional narrative that does little more than validate the New Age rhetoric.
"What the Bleep's" undoing is rooted in its fictional narrative, the story of Amanda. Terminally unhappy and continually reaching for prescription pills, she also happens to be deaf (and is played by deaf actress Marlee Matlin). Her marriage was a disaster - ending in her husband's brazen infidelity. Naturally, Amanda hates assignments to photograph weddings. And naturally, her assignment in this narrative is to do just that.
"What the Bleep Do We Know" tries to unify too many disparate elements and everything suffers as a result.
"What the Bleep" bills itself as a film that illuminates, through the language of quantum mechanics, the power in how we perceive the world around us. The film asserts that we are selling short our ability to define our existence by our dependence on tactile, physical reality and by preconceived notions of what is possible.
This premise is very attractive. One can envision a discussion of how the laws of Newtonian physics are a poor fit at the sub-atomic scale. Such a film could then illustrate how these counter-intuitive phenomenon conflict with our understanding of more massive bodies. With a combination of expert opinion and proper computer generated illustrations, the film could explore the relevance of quantum physics within the world around us.
But this was not to be.
The film starts out with nameless interviewees questioning the basis of the physical universe. (They are identified at the end of the film, but more on that later.) The contention is made that were conditioned to define our existence in terms of tactile, physical and observable phenomenon. Given these parameters, we are predisposed to equate perception with reality. These notions seem reasonable enough. After all, Plato came to the same conclusions tripping over a rock.
But following these initial observations, and brief discussion of how the physical laws that govern large masses are no longer valid at the sub-atomic level, the film becomes bogged down in a fictional narrative that does little more than validate the New Age rhetoric.
"What the Bleep's" undoing is rooted in its fictional narrative, the story of Amanda. Terminally unhappy and continually reaching for prescription pills, she also happens to be deaf (and is played by deaf actress Marlee Matlin). Her marriage was a disaster - ending in her husband's brazen infidelity. Naturally, Amanda hates assignments to photograph weddings. And naturally, her assignment in this narrative is to do just that.