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Kim Ode writes about the personal issues that arise from a wide variety of events, whether the stuff of headlines or the more ordinary incidents of everyday life. Her columns appear in the Variety section on Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays.

Last update: November 19, 2004 at 3:46 PM

Kim Ode,  Star Tribune

There's a bit of marketing genius behind the low-budget indie movie, "What the Bleep Do We Know?" Because: You see the movie. You come out dying to talk about it with friends, but you can't unless they've seen it, so you urge them to go. They repeat the process: seeing, dying, urging.

Bleeping brilliant.

It's one reason the movie has sold more tickets than any other this year at the Edina Cinema, and why, despite being ignored by Hollywood's honchos, it's being held over for weeks, and even months, in theaters nationwide.

But the geniuses forgot one thing: to come up with a way to describe this exceedingly weird movie. You begin with the obvious. It's a movie about quantum physics. Right away, you sense trouble. But there's more.

There's a Polish wedding. And scenes about body image, ice crystals, anxiety and the power we have to create our own reality. Also, the power of mixed drinks, especially at a Polish wedding. Plus, there are some cartoony Flubber creatures. And scientists!

At this point, your listeners are either edging away or irresistibly curious. Gary White of Minneapolis was among the latter. He'd heard that the movie was about the spiritual side of quantum physics and thought "that if something like that can get on the big screen, I'd check it out." He did, then saw it a second time with a friend. And then again with another.

White, 68, is an electrical engineer by background and a retired software businessman by trade. He's studied miracles and religion, but also is intrigued by the science of brain imaging, in which the brain "lights up" differently when feeling pleasure or pain. "That's where the movie struck a chord," White said. Brain research shows how we're driven chemically, "that we're more than just this 'freewill' stuff."

OK, some of you may be wondering right about now what the bleep you're doing still reading this. And yet, here you are, just confused enough to pay attention. Maddening, isn't it? But also kind of surprising? Maybe even freeing?

Oops -- too far, too fast. But that's how the movie often feels, New Age 101 at warp speed. So consider this a sampling of the movie experience. From the get-go, it poses questions such as "Who am I?" and "What is reality?" Then it poses them again. And then once more.

The closest the filmmakers come to an answer is espousing that each of us has the power to create our own reality. Which is spiritual, right? But because our brains become wired to think in a certain way, we need to change our wiring in order to change our reality. In other words, we need to train our neurons to connect in better ways. Which is science, right? The leap is to begin thinking of spirit and science as forces that converge, instead of contradict.

This is not your usual Hollywood movie.

Kim Matthews Jones, 39, said she's still trying to digest the message, but that the movie struck a particular nerve on the heels of the election. "We all sort of get caught in the day-to-day thing and feeling that society functions this way, and that individuals don't have any agency to effect change," she said. "This movie says, 'Wait a minute, the individual does have agency to make change -- if you want to.' But if we focus on negative thoughts, we're going to create negative circumstances."

Matthews Jones, a sculptor in Minneapolis, came to the movie with a background in transcendental meditation, but still thought "it was a really weird mix of things." There actually is a conventional "movie" in the movie, starring Marlee Matlin as a photographer who copes with life by gulping anxiety pills. Matthews Jones wasn't wild about that part, but figured that such "eye candy" helps people through the other parts, "like that Ramtha chick."

I'd explain that, but it would sabotage one of the movie's strategies. The film is peppered with interviews with a range of people talking about physics, brain waves, God and how to "create" the day. But their identities are withheld until the end in an effort to keep viewers focused on the message instead of the messengers.

Views differ on whether this is an illuminating technique or duplicitous trickery. But views differ about this whole movie. The http://www.whatthebleep.com// Web site is full of links and discussions. Most of the more than 1,700 comments from viewers are swooning, but there also are those who wonder what the bleep the fuss is all about.

I'm not sure myself. Observers of the cultural scene wonder if there's a growing market for "weird" movies such as "Super Size Me" or "Fahrenheit 9/11." Or maybe more people are ready to probe such questions. Or maybe we're simply listening to the urgings of a good friend to see a movie we'd never dreamed of going to.

Gary White isn't sure, either, but he loves the reactions that the movie inspires and how it prods people to think rather than just sit back and be entertained. "Something about it resonates in a person, makes them say, 'Wow, I think there's some truth here I haven't considered before,' " he said. "But I'd love to talk to someone who hated it!"

Kim Ode's column runs Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays. Write to her at kimode@startribune.com or 425 Portland Av. S. Minneapolis MN 55488. For past columns, go to www.startribune.com/ode.

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