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What The Bleep!? Down The Rabbit Hole

2006, Movie, NR, 156 mins

What The Bleep!? Down The Rabbit Hole: Review

WHAT THE BLEEP!? DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE
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Misleadingly billed as "the next evolution" of the Bleep experience, this follow-up to WHAT THE BLEEP DO WE KNOW (2004), a documentary-fiction hybrid exploring quantum physics, the mind-body connection, and the point at which science and spirituality intersect, is in fact simply a significantly longer version of Mark Vicente, William Arntz and Betsy Chasse's original film. The narrative portions of WHAT THE BLEEP involve neurotic professional photographer Amanda (Marlee Matlin), an avowed rationalist dependent on antianxiety pills since the bitter divorce that left her cynical, lonely and filled with self-loathing. Her boss (Barry Newman) and flaky but optimistic roommate Jennifer (Elaine Hendrix), try to help Amanda see that her life won't change unless she takes charge and changes her attitude, but it takes a series of mind-bending chance encounters to introduce her to "the physics of possibility," which allow for parallel realities, objects that can be in two places simultaneously and the possibility that the mind can shape external reality. Amanda's awakening is punctuated with talking-head interviews featuring physicists, medical doctors, and assorted experts on consciousness and spirituality. Most of Amanda's tale resurfaces in the "sequel," rearranged and trimmed, as do the first film's interviews, padded with some 45 minutes of additional footage. DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE opens with "Is News Reel?", a snarky, Terry Gilliam-esque animated "newsreel" exploring the historical relationship between science and religion, and includes several additional animated sequences involving a superscientist named Professor Quantum. Both versions pose provocative questions and attempt to elucidate the paradoxes of quantum physics, a discipline so far removed from the black-and-white certainties of classical science that it's always in danger of sounding like voodoo to the layperson. Both include lengthy examinations of the biological peptide/receptor mechanism, which may explain the obduracy of dependence, whether on true addictives to drugs and alcohol or equally destructive compulsions — overeating, promiscuity, financially ruinous shopping. But the goofy use of animated, Flubber-like blobs aping Robert Palmer's "Addicted to Love" video (by way of illustrating the irresistibility of desire itself) makes it hard to take the science seriously, which is the BLEEP problem in a nutshell. The claims of various sober-seeming thinkers are colored by the filmmakers' close association with Ramtha's School of Enlightenment and its prominently featured founder, JZ Knight, who claims to channel the wisdom of a 35,000-year-old warrior spirit from Atlantis. The Ramtha connection adds a strong hint of nuttiness to the entire enterprise, notwithstanding a disclaimer that not all the interviewees concur with the film's conclusions. The direct-to-DVD WHAT THE BLEEP!?: DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE QUANTUM EDITION extends the feature to a mind-boggling five hours. leave a comment --Maitland McDonagh
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