, directed by Ian Cheney, will be available on Netflix next month
“SO, YOU’RE a nerd too!” That’s the flash of recognition between an astrophysicist researching dark matter and a psychologist studying human consciousness. “One hundred per cent,” is the response.
This exchange comes fromThe Most Unknown, US-Canadian platform Motherboard’s first documentary. The 85-minute film sets up an unusual “relay race” for nine researchers studying the biggest questions in their fields: it has them trek around the world to visit each other in their “natural habitats” – their labs.
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Each scientist must find a way to understand and connect with the next person’s work. So while the film educates us about the biggest mysteries humans are studying, it is also about the nature and endeavour of science. The topics they focus on differ vastly, but their approach is the same: curiosity bordering on obsession, accompanied by an unflinching optimism that there will be answers.
Nearly every segment begins with a drone shot of a single scientist in an empty landscape – a psychologist in the desert, an astrophysicist on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica, a geobiologist walking up a country track.
The whole thing starts in darkness, though, in the Frasassi caves near Ancona in Italy. Jennifer Macalady, a biologist at Penn State University, shines her torch through the murky water and samples something white and slimy. Then, as only film can, she is whisked away to Italy’s Gran Sasso National Laboratory, the world’s largest underground research centre, where physicist Davide D’Angelo is exploring a different sort of darkness – dark matter. Under the mountain, Macalady finds a stalactite and some microbes. Everything is connected.
We next see D’Angelo hopping onto a train to visit the Brussels lab of cognitive psychologist Axel Cleeremans to learn about his consciousness research. In turn, Cleeremans heads off to find out about methanogens from Luke McKay in the desert outside Reno, Nevada… and so on.
It can be a bit capital “S” science, but, thankfully, the film isn’t all heavy-handed symbolism and musing voice-overs as each scientist passes on the baton of knowledge. Much of it is like watching a friendly chat in a pub (sometimes literally), as they all gamely explain day-to-day research – and its grander goals.
At each step, the researchers keep on making connections. Being in a submersible at the bottom of the sea feels just like floating through space, says an astronomer. And Cleeremans muses about understanding consciousness: “Sometimes I feel that we’re really far off”, but adds that “there’s something exciting about, as an individual, feeling connected to these… big issues”.
“There may never be answers, but how we seek them is interesting in itself”
Whether it is the film’s careful selection of interdisciplinary researchers or its clever editing, all the subjects of The Most Unknown seem to speak the same language of science. And although the film is a crash course in the big issues in science today and a chance to meet some of the individuals who study them, it is also a sort of experiment remarkably similar to one in its final section.
On an island close to Puerto Rico, Laurie Santos, a cognitive psychologist and primatologist from Yale University, is working with rhesus monkeys. One study involves putting on a little performance.
A researcher rolls a ball into one of two boxes. Another watches and then reaches into the correct box to retrieve the ball. The monkey quickly loses interest. Another time, the second researcher doesn’t watch which box the ball ends up in, so checks the wrong one. This time, the monkey is fascinated. It pays closer attention when the scientist doesn’t seem to have all the information.
There’s the rub: none of the scientists in this film have all the information. The documentary ends where it began, looking for answers in a cave. There may never be answers, but how we seek them is interesting in itself. Like the monkeys, we’ll keep on watching.
This article appeared in print under the headline “Making connections”
