MINDWALK
A film review by Lons Ponschock
Copyright 1996 Lons Ponschock
Directed by Bernt Capra >From _The Turning Point_ A novel by Fritjof Capra
Starring Liv Ullman
Sam Waterston
John Heard
Up there, I call this article the 'talkies.'
MINDWALK is a talkie. Its three characters: a politician, a poet and a physicist meet at a medieval castle on the island of St. Michelle in France. The poet, who is also a political speech writer, is called by the politician who needs his help to be elected. This the set up.
But it is not about politics or writing.
Low key is the phrase to describe MINDWALK. It's a sort of MY DINNER WITH ANDRE for those with a philosophical bent.
I thought that it would be good for Easter Eve and I'm running it again in the background as I write this in the morning. Though the film is low key, it's not boring but succeeds in being visually interesting throughout.
Here is probably a good place to throw in the fact that A BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME will be available on video shortly as well.
These two films came out very close together and are released close together for the home market. Hey, maybe they'll be on Public TV in two weeks, how could I know?
MINDWALK is a conversation. The writing here is what is fascinating. Fascinating because it is captured for a film audience which will probably remain rather small. MINDWALK is a conversation about science and history. Like James Burke's _Connections_ programs on PBS, MINDWALK seeks to see the world in a new way; to get a new perspective on what the guy on Saturday Night live called 'the big picture.'
It would be hard to put my finger on a politically correct issue which is NOT in MINDWALK. But it's virtually impossible to talk about one thing without talking about everything else.
So MINDWALK is a good video to listen to and watch if you are interested in _everything_. :-)
I enjoyed and can recommend it as an intellectual exercise.
lon
--
"I did not know the cure for the disease
of images, but I believed in the healing
power of words and stories."
- Until the End of the World - lon@edsi.org
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews