Review of Spaceship Earth
midlandsmovies • August 3, 2020
Spaceship Earth (2020) Dir. Matt Wolf
How would humans survive in a biosphere was the question asked in 1991 when a group of 8 people decided to spend 2 years quarantined inside a self-contained eco-system i.e. a large greenhouse.
This new documentary attempts to deconstruct those behind the experiment, as the scientists try to find out how to endure the limiting conditions inside “Biosphere 2” (Earth itself is Biosphere 1 we are told) built in the Arizona desert.
Spaceship Earth should then be an interesting premise – a biodome constructed by some eccentric wannabes – but it takes this idea and delivers it in such a colossally dull way. Using (almost unedited) archive footage, we get elongated background dirge on the cult-like amateur new age ‘pioneer’ eco-dullards who haven’t got a shred of personality between them.
How can you make such a radical idea so boring? Well, endless shots of farming, random administration and explanations help this by slowing the story to a tiresome crawl. And although they say they are “wacky” and the experiment itself “biblical”, they are in fact such dull people there is no connection to them or their work. The film fails to find an engaging hook or angle and sadly flails around ideas and themes without any precision.
Everything the people describe their dream dome project to be – full of “wonder” and a “sensation” – is simply not present in this film. They keep referring to their “charismatic” leader. Where? Who? There’s no one with charisma here.
As you can tell, this started to make me angry. If you must watch it, jump a long way in as you can catch up with the people finally entering the dome without missing a thing.
My patience was severely tested with one scientist excitedly (for her I guess) exclaiming “It was extremely difficult to bake a cake”. Oh, do fuck off would you.
In the end they were trapped with no immediate means of escape which is how I felt whilst watching Spaceship Earth. I therefore recommend putting this documentary in a sealed and enclosed environment and never let it out, or give me the sensationalist version because this ‘more authentic’ take is a snooze-fest.
★★
Michael Sales
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