One of the most useful impressions of the New Year holidays - 2019 - a trip to the screening of the popular science film "Brain". The Second Universe" and a meeting with the author - Julia Kiseleva.
After the film, the audience asked Yulia several times, “Why did you shoot all this?” For me personally, these goals are obvious: a reason to go to a science film with my 13-year-old daughter, talk to her about how we are all different, how we perceive life differently, and why it is so difficult for us to negotiate with each other. The daughter at the level of her age did not understand all the explanations of scientists verbatim, but Nina Bisarina’s animation and the visibility of experiments helped. And after the session, she remembered that a few years ago, her classmate told her that every letter has a color, and the whole class proved to her that this does not happen! The girl agreed with the majority and the topic of synesthesia was no longer raised - for peace of mind.
After the movie came to visit, told my friend, with whom we have been around for 20 years, what the film is about. She says, I see the colors of names. For example, the name of Light is a greenish one.” People, I don't know so much about you, it turns out!! How many wonderful discoveries we have.
She said of the film, We had to convince scientists that we were not journalists. We make movies, not pseudo-scientific TV movies, in which decent scientists do not want to glow. Journalism and television are often incompatible. Sad situation. It's good that the documentary filmmakers have some chances.
The most interesting thing is that the audience from the hall after the film asked Yulia “Why is there no Kurpatov?” (It’s strange that they didn’t mention Chernihiv.) The author made it clear that no media figures were planned to attract attention in this film or the next. Even if someone has a mood of a bluish hue - there will be no stars on the poster. Honest position!
I wish Yulia Kiseleva to successfully complete the following film-research and show scientific pop to senior schoolchildren: therapeutic hypnosis, neurocybernetics, behavioral experiments - all this may well awaken a real interest in science.
First of all, I want to note that my review will be more concerned with the content of the film itself and to a lesser extent - its directing, script, cinematography, etc.
First you have to praise something. Well... This film is certainly not The Great Secret of Water in the sense that it lacks overtly pseudoscientific speculation. I didn’t find any more “pluses.”
Cons:
1. The first drawback is boredom! When I read the title of the film, I imagine that it will be devoted to questions about how brain physiological activity controls behavior, how brain function and the functioning of subjective mental processes are related, how by studying the brain we can predict human behavior. Allahverdov, one of the invited experts of the film, quite rightly notes that hundreds of studies have been devoted to these topics, a lot of facts have been accumulated that shock the mind. The key problem of modern science is that these facts are interpreted in completely different ways by neuroscientists on the one hand, and philosophers and psychologists on the other. It would be logical to assume that the authors will highlight these facts by showing this very difference in interpretation. This includes the search for neural correlates of consciousness, and the identification of the functional specialization of neurons, and the explanation of the processing of sensory information by neural structures, and the description of connectomes, etc. Let the funding is small, and not all data can be demonstrated by filming the original experiments, but you can at least mention them, list and bring them into a single system.
None of the above is in the film! It seems that the author, without bothering to thoroughly study the topic to which the film devotes, simply decided to gather in his film a party of eminent and not very eminent scientists and interview them on the topic of those private studies that they conduct.
If you at least a little follow popular science films on this topic, then I can guarantee: from the movie “Brain”. Second universe" You won't learn anything new. A significant part of the facts covered in this picture are “canned” of varying degrees of limitation. This data in a much better representation (both textual and visual) You can find in a number of foreign films or even in old domestic films like “Me and Others”.
2. The second disadvantage is eclecticity. The film is dedicated to 7 topics – 7 areas of research. Often the sections of the film are not related to each other, and the question of why the authors decided to move to the coverage of the next topic remains unanswered (if you do not take into account replicas like: “I was interested in the question...”). Some of the themes are so narrow that again, it seems that the director implicitly decided to stick them in the film, accidentally stumbling upon them while surfing the Internet. In addition, after all these jumps from topic to topic, no generalization is offered to the viewer, no alternative interpretations are demonstrated.
3. The third disadvantage is the quality of the material. Often the content is served stretched with repeated repetition of the same thoughts uttered by different words. All this time could be used to highlight other research and empirical data. It seems that the author simply did not know how to otherwise stretch the material he had for an hour and a half.
4. The fourth drawback is the one-sided presentation of the material. As I pointed out above, it is interesting when facts are considered from different – polar – points of view, when alternative arguments are presented. You won’t see that in the movie.
I have great respect for the works of Allahverdov, Kaplan, Klyucharev and other invited experts. However, in my opinion, the director failed to use their experience to adequately cover the issue. Films do not cope with its main function - to educate the mass audience and awaken in him interest in the study of the brain and psyche.
2 out of 10
I have been following this project for a long time, since their crowdfunding days. The authors are, of course, giants. To cover the incomplete in one movie, albeit full-length - the task is not trivial. Many topics from different areas are covered. For example, very big (and sick, I would say): how we perceive the world. And this alone pulls on the mini-series, which can be called "Picture of the World": the visible world, the tactile world, the sound world, the taste world ... And in each - how the brain works in this case, what features and exceptions, how we build a picture of the world, and what features we have and how we differ from each other.
Another huge topic is human social behavior, which is very much about how we perceive other people and how we perceive us. How we behave in this or that case and why. But, however, here, rather - here, there is such a phenomenon (for example, conformity), and not an attempt to understand why.
And the third, which seems to flow smoothly from the second, is whether we can control another person (or being), how, and how ethically it is.
I can’t say that I learned something new for myself, but the film certainly gave food for thought, giving the opportunity to look at the same topics with other people’s eyes. There are more questions than answers, but I think it’s a good thing for a documentary about our brain.
I suspected the film was wonderful. I heard the reviews, wanted to go. I didn't make it to the first show. But somehow it felt like it was worth it, so I even asked to repeat the session in our city. Fortunately, it happened thanks to the responsiveness of the director Julia and a favorable coincidence! And yes, the impressions not only met my expectations, but even exceeded them in some ways! I liked the style, the directing work. Very creative, at the same time scientific, cognitive. There are some interesting facts that I didn’t know before. Refers to thoughts about the ocean of human capabilities that have not yet been explored. What is known about the brain today, can surprise and inspire self-knowledge, development and creative search. In general, I highly recommend watching anyone who is close to the topic of human development and research of its capabilities. There's something at the junction of a number of directions. And at the same time, art is present: music, humor, live conversations, soulful, a lot of human, real, touching. Heroes are interesting. It makes you think about important things. I like the image of the universe, the views of the cosmos are fascinating, of course: Great writers and everyone who worked on the film. It turned out beautiful: at the same time deep and at the same time easy and bright. You can see immediately that the team worked on the project with soul! I hope to continue;
Seeing sounds, feeling numbers, forgetting at the click of your fingers, not noticing pain, not knowing what a loved one looks like, robots-insects, a person + a computer. ..
What is it? The Marvell Universe or the Bond sequel? No, it's a documentary about the brain. This is a movie about us.
Director Yulia Kiseleva packed a whole kaleidoscope into the picture, which patternedly crumbles across the screen - authoritative opinions, personal dramas, famous experiments, futuristic technologies and incredible but reasonable forecasts.
The most amazing thing happens when an impressed viewer leaves the room and the discussion begins. Here and there in the crowd is heard ' And I have it!', 'I thought I was the only one so crazy!', 'No, I don't believe it's impossible!', 'How sorry that cockroach!'. The film lives long after viewing and, undoubtedly, settles in the audience.
After watching this vivid documentary, I can’t help but think about the quirkiness of recursion, where the brain studies the brain that studies the brain. . .
Maybe the brain is not the second universe, but the only one that creates all the others.
Everybody watch. Very clever, concise and interesting
It was a great pleasure to watch the premiere of the film '. The Second Universe & #39;
The further you dive (in my case ' dive ' – sounds very unmodest) into the understanding of neuroscience, psychology and their interaction, the more excited you become. The more you understand the variability of people’s perception and motivation, the more insignificant our fragmented knowledge and ideas about the nature of human consciousness and society as a whole, and the assessment of the behavior of others seem. The more grandiose are the discoveries of the future in this area.
I am delighted with the special guest of the premiere - neuroscientist, HSE professor Vasily Klyucharev - he can be listened to endlessly. Special thanks to the director of the film Yulia Kiselyova, who also attended the premiere, these people make a huge contribution to the development of society and their motivation and work causes only respect.
Be sure to see, you won't regret it.
I watched the movie Brain. "Second Universe" at the premiere screening at the documentary center. There was a resell, the audience sat on the steps, the apple had nowhere to fall. And this hype is justified. An amazing science movie, popularly telling about the secrets of our brain. Every fact in this film was a big revelation to me. Of course, I knew that all people perceive reality differently, but the examples described in the film are perceived as something fantastic. Almost every minute I watched, I wanted to shout, “Is that right?” But even without my question, a scientist would appear on the screen to prove that everything I saw actually exists in reality.
All the possibilities of our brain, described in the second part of the film, are well known. But the fact that the brain can be subjugated and that a huge number of scientists are working on this issue both here and abroad and have already achieved huge, fantastic successes, it was surprising and incomprehensible to me. Our brain controls us, but we still want to control it. We want to live without our fears and complexes, we want to live with our mind and not with collective ideas, we want to have a third hand, even if it is mechanical, we want a lot of things. And the movie Brain. The second universe gives us hope that everything we want will come true.
Daria