Review: What the BLEEP do we Know?

From Kalpulli Community

What the BLEEP do we Know?

The self-censored title of this movie, a half documentary and half fiction film about basic metaphysics, should give you a clue.

We don't know ENOUGH about the universe or metaphysics to make any solid claims, only enough to refute claims-- that should go without saying to any philosophy buff who understands that things can be disproved but not proven.

The main audience of What the BLEEP do we Know? is hardly philosophers, scientists, or people looking for proof.

The film's international audience has grown so rapidly since its release in 2004 because it's the self-censoring, family-friendly audience that's always been the mainstay of theaters.

Ads tout it as a revolutionary documentary that will open your mind, but if it really opened your mind, theaters and states would censor it, rather than the producers having already watered it down with slow, mundane acting.

I answer its persistent title question with, 'Not enough. What the FUCK do you expect?'

The producers expected to reach people already addicted to 'mind-blowing graphics' (read: low-brow animation) and the narrative-guiding voice of authority, found in interviews with white professor-types which are reminiscent of Bill Nye the Science Guy.

The film hooks people at an intellectual level with pseudo-science that is, unfortunately, never explained in depth later.

Then it takes viewers through the unhappy daily life of a fictional woman, lowering their critical faculties for a bit of entertainment between interview clips.

Amanda, the main character wanders around until she's confronted by strangers with philosophical questions, just like Joan of Arcadia on TV.

Joan had faith in the voices of God, and Amanda has faith that these philosophical interludes are leading somewhere. I noted that the target audience is already addicted to this sort of info-tainment.

Well, by the middle of the movie, the main interview subject has addressed this directly: Addictions are a High, Addiction to Emotions are Prevalent, Addiction and Illness come From Emotion Abuse, etc.... You should recognize these claims for how they're put to use in the movie, as in almost any movie: people seek a thrill and that thrill is highest when they're drawn in to a story emotionally, rather than intellectually.

You should also recognize where the main interview subject, J.Z. Knight, was going with her claims: addictions are exploited by religious groups and cults, like Knight's own cult, Ramtha's School of Enlightenment. Once critical faculties are lowered, the cult's answers to life's problems can slip in.

In the end, the move is all about Amanda's life choices-- and our life choices, not about the intangibility of solid objects or the nature of the universe. Guess what the right choice is? Amanda throws away her anxiety pills and probably, post-canon, goes to Washington to join Ramtha in a new mystical addiction.

This is just what a selfish audience wants: to consider themselves enlightened after watching a movie with minimal reading involved.

I note that reading is important because answers to the questions addressed, questions of metaphysics and ice crystal formations, can be found in scientific journals, but who expects the audience to go read research papers when the producers didn't even expect them to read lower-third titles?

Perhaps it's just the documentarist in me that's bothered by the lack of identifying titles on the interview clips. Of course we don't see the names of these voices of authority until the very end-- when each professor-type and J.Z. Knight, psychic channeler gets to have a last self-congratulatory word with their name and title in the lower-third.

"It's time to get wise," sings a rapper at beginning and end. I hope we all do gain some wisdom from What the BLEEP Do We Know? -- and also consider what it could've been without the self-censoring, heavy editing or cheesy acting.