Customer Reviews

Mindwalk [VHS]

5 star:		(73)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

At first glance, this video may seem a bit dry. After all, how intersting can it be to listen to a poet, politician and physicist talking about quantum physics and worldviews, right? The answer to that question lies deep in your heart, soul and consciousness. If you watch this movie, you cannot help but view the world through an entirely different lens.

Each member of our family has enjoyed the richness of Mind Walk several times. Our children range in age from 13 to 20 and we find this is a wonderful way to open their minds to the challenges of clinging to a Cartesian worldview. Sharing the movie as a family sparks amazingly deep conversations about the important issues that face our generations. We have noticed a quickening in their understanding of the holistic view of nature, man and the universe. Our two oldest children have used Mind Walk to write papers for school on the emerging worldview. What a gift to learn about this open and hopeful way of viewing the world at their age! My husband and I only wish we had learned of this in our teens rather than waiting until we were adults to fully understand the interconnectedness of all living things - and that all of nature is enchanted and alive.

I recommend this video to you, your family, your friends and acquaintances. It is a gift to your soul and the souls of others - from the soul of the world.

I too have watched this one multiple times. Music by Phillip Glass, poetry by Pablo Neruda, physics by Fritjof Capra... The interplay among the diverse personalities of poet (philosopher), politician (pragmatist), and physicist (intellectual) is beautifully orchestrated and wonderfully inclusive. The illustrative presentations of extremely complex subjects, as well as the "inconclusiveness" of the film's "message" is what draws you back time and again. We are left wiser in our understanding, but it is left to each of us to figure out what it means for us on a personal level. Just as with the characters of the film, you are left feeling as if you have truly reached a "Turning Point" in your own life. It is truly a movie for the mind, but watch it with your whole heart and soul.

Mind Walk is a movie made in the shadow lands of the cinematic market place that creates a monumental and intricate summation of where this world is in terms of nature and human intervention. This film can can be mined again and again on multiple levels for thought provoking excursions. It is exactly as the title says...a Mind Walk. The acting is absolutely superlative...and there is "real" acting from first frame to last in a very controlled, steady pace that goes from scattered generalties of Western thought down to literally a sub-atomic introspection and then back to a new, generalized view of EVERYTHING and EVERYBODY that is called Systems Theory. What makes the 'walk' all the more fun is the effort of the poet and politician to press the scientist, in an unrelenting and mentally rigorous manner, to tether her theory to the here and now. The three principles of this 'afternoon of conversation' on ancient Mount St. Michel, do this quite well to the subtle backdrop of a typically repetitive Philip Glass sound track that adds another thread that links this single afternoon, just as the tide coming back in around the small island completes a cycle.

This movie engages your mind and your soul. YOU also 'walk' away with something...a new point of view.

It is no wonder main stream corporate America is giving this whole idea of Systems Theory a second look. To regard any moderate to very complex issue these days without this vision is like failing to show up.

If you crave violence and lust for mindless fiction, then this movie would be your ultimate torture test. Don't go there. On the other hand, if you are searching for a quiet, poetic journey that covers the most sublime and momentous issues of our age, then buy this movie NOW! I now look at Mt. Saint Michel as an outpost of our salvation as a species. This movie in a most deliberate manner, like a piece of baroque music by Vivaldi, soars with great imagination but in an orderly fashion. Contrived? Yes. But so what when the music is this wonderful!!!

And by-the-way/...After seeing this movie, I seached Amazon.com and found this great, concise book on this way of thinking called The Systems View of the World by Ervin Laszlo, Hampton Press).

I love this film...preachy? Well, of course it is, but it's also lyrical and beautiful. Pretentious? No, just ambitious. Those who want us all to remain in a comfortable (for them) Skinner box built of one form of orthodoxical ignorance or another, will not like it. Those of us who live in the world of thinking the unthinkable...our time among the red-colored drapes...will love this film.

Despite the comments made by other reviewers, this movie is entertainment. Not in the let's kill a few people or laugh at people mode, but in the way it tries to explore the effects that modern physics may have on the way we think about the world. If you are at all intellectually curious, you should see this movie. It may not be correct in some places, but the stimulation to think is there.

This movies is not intended to be "art" in any sense of the word and if you think that it is meant to be, you should look elsewhere. Fritjof Capra (on whose ideas this film has some basis) has some interesting views about physics which are somewhat "mystical" and which I do not necessarily share, however he prodded my thinking with his book "The Tau of Physics" when it was first published in 1975 and caused me to look at the world in a different way. This film attempts to do the same using a Poet, a Politician and a Physicist in the backdrop of the Mont St Michel off the coast of France (Brittany) to explain some of the discoveries of modern physics and relate them to how it affects the average person and if, indeed, it really matters whether we understand the underlying structure in the universe. Note the choice of protagonists. The film is excellent in the way it looks at the world through the eyes of the individuals and tries to reconcile the non intutitive deductions of modern physics.

Enjoy the film and take it for what it was meant to be, a brief introduction to modern physics and the relevance it may have to us.

Amazing. And still fairly current after 14 years. If only they would re-release it on DVD.... It's a beautful movie that keeps you on your toes intellectually. Very daring in its simplicity of plot, it shows 3 different perspectives on science, politics, history, and life itself.

Over the years since I first experienced Mindwalk in a theater upon its opening, I've revisited it several times. Each time it holds something new to discover. On the surface, an accessible introduction to quantum theory, a visual feast, and a simple 3-person conversation that ultimately creates the paradigmatic thesis-antithesis-synthesis triangle. Going deeper, an examination of the incomprehensively complex interactions of cause and effect that create "the human condition." Finally, a meditation on why all the knowledge scientific in the world can't help us when it slams up against the wall of political reality, an examination of why changing our course as a species may be utterly impossible, and a final monologue (delivered by the poet) that is truly remarkable.

I've shown this film to college freshmen as a prompt for writing, and it never fails to spark interesting thinking.

I was dragged by a friend to see that OTHER "metaphysical physics" movie and was beyond disgusted. Mindwalk tackles many of the same themes in an infinitely more intelligent, and intelligible, way. (Plus, it has the added appeal of having been based on the work of an actual physicist, rather than the channeled messages of a 35,000 year-old Lemurian spirit named Ramtha who happens to speak through a woman who looks a lot like Tammy Faye Bakker.)

The performances are moving, the subject matter is challenging, and the arguments among characters are provocative. Those who enjoy intellectual, moral, and political arguments will love it. Action movie fans, True Believers (in anything), and children under the age of 12 will, however, probably scream and run from the room after the first 20 minutes.

Director Bernt Capra wrote the story on which this film he based. The imaginary conversation between a physicist, a politician, and a poet takes its queue from the theories of Capra's father, physicist Fritjof Capra, who laid his hypothesis down in his book The Turning Point. The book is a wonderfully illuminating read. Whether or not you agree with Capra's theories, and the film's discussion, both the movie and Capra's book point towards some of the concerns of modern physics today and indicate a number of views that are currently being entertained in the modern scientific world. This is not merely true for physics, but it extends to the realms of biology and the social sciences as well.
This film is a valuable contribution because it showcases a new perspective that can provide an alternative to young and adult audiences alike, for viewing the world in a new light. It explores the relationship of humanity with science, perceptions, understanding, creativity, and nature in an easy-to understand fashion. The world that is discovered is one of interconnectedness and awareness that our actions do affect everything around us, bringing a strengthened sense of responsibility. How can this possibly be bad?

This straightforward argument between a politican looking at things from the Cartesian point of view, a physicist looking at things from a systems point of view, and a poet as both the catalyst and the summary of the argument, is a great way to invite students into the discussion. This is not a movie that uses the three second rule to keep the viewers' attention, nor is there sex or violence to seek a killing at the box office, but instead of straight lecture this movie puts these positions artfully on display in a skillful interplay. This movie is well worth having in a school library and becoming a nice part of the curriculum. It will spark great discussions among students who had no interest in the subjects before but will after.

In an article written some thirty years ago, Sturgeon proposed a motto for the, let's say, critical thought: "Ask the next question". There is always a next question to be asked, next in depth, next in consequence. He even came up with a symbol I can't reproduce here, a "Q" crossed by an arrow.

"Mind Walk" does just that: throughout it, the characters' relentless questioning of each other, and of themselves, spurs you on to just keep on thinking, to carry your own doubts and concerns to their ultimate conclusions (which, again, will generate further questions ...).

I came upon this movie quite by chance, on the Brazilian equivalent to your PBS. My only regret is that I haven't been able to secure a copy with Portuguese subtitles I could show to my students at the Journalism college course I teach at.

Of course, this is not a movie for the Schwarzenegger/Stallone/Willis/Van Damme/Chan crowd; so much for the better.

I have very little to add or counter to the reviews below, except that: - it's irrelevant whether or not one adheres to the systems theory school of thinking to enjoy this movie - it stands on its own, as, by the way, the Poet's closing remarks make abundantly clear; - how come no blood, sex and explosions ? It's all in there, only not in the graphic, lurid and bombastic - but sanitized - way Hollywood has been banging us over our heads for the past twenty-odd years.