Review: What the BLEEP is this movie?
Review: What the Blee…
p do we know?
I should have known better, the DVD cover design was threatening enough to warn me.
At first, I cursed my TV set, thinking it was switching on it’s own to some Glomail infomercial, but when they started talking about quantum physics, I figured out they weren’t selling vacuum cleaners.
Here is a short description from the movie’s website (whatthebleep.com) :
“WHAT THE BLEEP DO WE KNOW?! is a new type of film. It is part documentary, part story, and part elaborate and inspiring visual effects and animations. The protagonist, Amanda, played by Marlee Matlin, finds herself in a fantastic Alice in Wonderland experience when her daily, uninspired life literally begins to unravel, revealing the uncertain world of the quantum field hidden behind what we consider to be our normal, waking reality.
The fourteen top scientists and mystics interviewed in documentary style serve as a modern day Greek Chorus. In an artful filmic dance, their ideas are woven together as a tapestry of truth. The thoughts and words of one member of the chorus blend into those of the next, adding further emphasis to the film’s underlying concept of the interconnectedness of all things.”
First of all, the plot, cast and directing of this “fantastic Alice in Wonderland experience” could make your Saturday night soft-porn flick look like an award winning piece.
Marlee Matlin impersonates an irritating camel-toed photographer, who goes through a very uneventful life crisis, but (warning, spoiler ahead) she turns out ok at the end and she even draws little flowers all over her body because she loves herself so much. Sickening!
The “inspiring visual effects and animations” are hard to describe. Oros man meets the under-budget matrix???
As for the “fourteen top scientists and mystics” they interviewed. Here’s a couple of them:
– JZ Knight (also called Ramtha) : Leader of the Ramtha’s School of Enlightenment. Ramtha is the name of a being that JZ Knight claims to channel. Knight asserts that Ramtha is a 35,000 year old spiritual being who was, according to Knight, “a Lemurian warrior who conquered the continent Atlantis and later became enlightened.” MORE ON RAMTHA
– Dr. Joseph Dispenza : A chiropractor that, strangely enough, belongs to Ramtha’s School of Enlightenment. What does a chiro has to do say bout quantum physics and mind-matter issues anyway?
– Andrew B. Newberg : A medical doctor, radiologist, with a mystical edge. Again, I’m not sure what qualifies him to talk about the matter at hand.
And the list goes. Some of these “scientists” might actually know what they are talking about, but their contribution has been cut to irrelevant snippets and the phony ones definitely got more airtime (does this have anything to do with the three directors of the film beeing followers of Ramtha?).
Quantum physics, PhD’s, parallel universes… glitters, sparkles, bullshit!
It’s common practice for new-agey, conscience broadening cults to abuse new scientific theories, poorly understood by your average Joe, in ways that enhance their street cred.
Quantum physics, from what I’ve been able to gather (any help appreciated), deals with what’s under the bonnet of the atom. Old Newton becomes obsolete at that scale and the laws of physics change drastically to something completely counter intuitive. Subatomic particles don’t behave in the deterministic fashion we are used to in our human scale, there’s uncertainty, probabilities, and only once you observe them can you assess what path they “chose”. The observation process is very tricky at that level because, in order to observe something, you have to “shine light” on it, which in the subatomic world equates to “throwing things with bowling balls”. Obviously, when your only means to see something is to bombard it with bowling balls, you can expect your subject to be affected by the observation.
I can’t see why the uncertainty lying at the depth of our atoms would mean that you get to choose the outcome of the process (the “create your day” motto of the movie). Uncertainty doesn’t equate to choice or freedom, it’s just uncertain. Moreover, you and I are not living in a subatomic reality. Most of what’s happening to us can be described by classical (Newtonian) laws of physics; the same goes for our brains and therefore our minds. Your coffee mug is not going to hop into a parallel universe while you’re not watching (although your socks might).
Another big topic of the movie is emotions. We learn that our emotions are triggered by chemical processes in our brains and that drugs are actually triggering emotions by mimicking or interfering with those processes. Great! If you didn’t have a PhD, I’m not sure I would have believed you. So, you mean that, when I get trashed on Friday night, it’s actually chemicals in my drink that trigger neural activity responsible for me feeling self confident and happy. How insightful, I would never have guessed.
They go further though: if drugs are addictive and they have common properties with our natural emotion triggering chemicals, emotions must be addictive too. That must be one of the dodgiest shortcuts I came across. I’ve hurt myself a number of times in my life, those experiences bring along a full panel of negative emotions: fear, pain, discomfort… Strangely enough, I never got addicted to this; I actually try and avoid it as much as possible.
Anyway, as I’m sure you understood already, I wouldn’t recommend this movie to my worst enemy.
So long.
