Explaining Science

What the Bleep Do We Know?

This is a wonderfully peculiar combination of a PBS science program meets new age self-help video. That's right, a part how-to, part drama, part talking head special spiced with interviews with real philosophers, delivering practical advice on how to deal with this bombshell: that the reality of atoms is something we construct in our heads. This movie is shot straight and sincere but I can't remember a film more trippy. It's an odd kinda-documentary. In addition to very well-edited interviews with world class physicists and cosmologists, and classy NOVA-ish special effects, we get the meaning of things as channeled by the legendary psychic Rama  -- all the while weaving through a fictional story of a deaf photographer coming to terms with her handicap. Yep. Bizarre! Corny! Magical! Thought provoking! The bottom line of the film is the late-night thought that we're making reality up! It needs all kinds of strangeness to keep this argument going in daylight, but it is worth the ride.

-- KK

What the Bleep Do We Know?
2004, 90 min.
Directed by Betsy Chasse and Mark Vicente
$11
Available from Amazon
Rent from Netflix

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