Yes, the visuals are dazzling. The pacing and camera stance are almost Kubrickian, which alone reminds us that we are seeing a movie, and not a Discovery channel feature.
There are three narratives at work here, the visuals, our collective knowledge of science/nature that we have before experiencing these visuals, and the narration. Of these, the narration is the weakest link, nearly broken when we get to the conflation of biology with poetic 'love'. That is before...
...we get to Entropy. Movies themselves are a kind of struggle against entropy. Starting with a flood of chaotic images (elements), the movie's task is to go against the flow and try to impose a higher state of order -- a sort of life of its own in the viewer's mind. Through this device of self-reference, we are given the target criterion with which we judge the movie's quality: does the new order in your mind hold up against degradation?
I would say yes. Not only visually, but narratively -- by looking at ourselves from outside ourselves, the trap of melodrama is avoided.
Watch this and pay attention to the sight of a drop of milk dissolving in water, or the smoke rings...these are inherently cinematic notions: notions that belong with us among the tribe of the living.
There are three narratives at work here, the visuals, our collective knowledge of science/nature that we have before experiencing these visuals, and the narration. Of these, the narration is the weakest link, nearly broken when we get to the conflation of biology with poetic 'love'. That is before...
...we get to Entropy. Movies themselves are a kind of struggle against entropy. Starting with a flood of chaotic images (elements), the movie's task is to go against the flow and try to impose a higher state of order -- a sort of life of its own in the viewer's mind. Through this device of self-reference, we are given the target criterion with which we judge the movie's quality: does the new order in your mind hold up against degradation?
I would say yes. Not only visually, but narratively -- by looking at ourselves from outside ourselves, the trap of melodrama is avoided.
Watch this and pay attention to the sight of a drop of milk dissolving in water, or the smoke rings...these are inherently cinematic notions: notions that belong with us among the tribe of the living.