Doc Watch: Third Rock

SPACESHIP EARTH (B) - This is a fun but disjointed look back at Biosphere 2, the early '90s science project in which eight people (mostly former hippies) entered a secure atmosphere in the Arizona desert for two years to see whether they could create a utopian paradise.

Director Matt Wolf spends an inordinate amount of time -- about half of the nearly two-hour running time -- on backstory. The evolution of a hippie theater troupe, migrating from San Francisco to the east mountains outside Albuquerque, is fascinating, and the archival footage is insightful. It introduces us to guru John Allen, who was about 20 years older than the proteges who follow him out to the high desert to engage in activities that have the whiff of a cult. But Wolf could have sharpened and tightened this background portion.

He does capture the media circus surrounding Biosphere 2 and takes the viewer inside the sprawling replica of our planet. The project had its blips -- at one point the inhabitants were slowly being starved of oxygen and poisoned with carbon dioxide -- and some of the participants tell the story from their perspective. This documentary is insightful and serves as an interesting time capsule, but it never rises to the level of riveting or revelatory.

EARTH (B) - This tone poem leans heavily on visuals to quietly convey the destruction of Earth through construction, or as the New York Times put it, the case of humanity digging its own grave. Director Nikolaus Geyrhalter hangs out at a series of excavations around the world -- tunnels, coal mines, stone quarries -- and chats up the operators of backhoes and bulldozers who explain their jobs matter-of-factly.

The opening scene gives us a bird's-eye view of earth-movers creating yet another subdivision somewhere in southern California. Geyrhalter's establishing shots call to mind the work of Yann Arthus-Bertrand, whose "La Terre Vue du Ciel" art project at the turn of the millennium celebrated the patterns of the earth as seen from the sky, also as part of the United Nations' Earth From Above ecology mission. Geyrhalter also uses static camera positioning to produce long takes of environmental beauty and destruction. He takes us to a museum, where a docent explains the subterranean levels plumbed by the coal miners. Other workers/foremen offer subtle polemics about the environmental impact their work has.

Geyrhalter masterfully concocts his grand theme by mixing macho bravado, reverence for virginal corners of the world, respect for the technological brilliance of mankind, and melancholy over the rape of the earth. He takes a leisurely (some might consider it boring) slow march that unfolds across seven sites over nearly two hours. You might be awed; you might be appalled.

BONUS TRACK
The "Earth" trailer: