One of the things I love most about Knowing is its title. By the time the film ends the title runs in so many directions that on its own it spins out as many questions as the thing itself. The trickiest of these is the ultimate question about knowledge itself, and what it implies… or doesn’t.

Early on in the film, John Koestler is lecturing to his MIT Astrophysics class, and thoughts of his wife’s death lead him to the biggest of questions mankind has bashed its head against… determinism. Though he throws the game out to his class as the nonsensical dichotomy determinism vs. randomness, we know he means free will vs. determinism, and suspect some roadblock to do with hints of religion may be responsible for the “randomness” dressing.

As we know from the trailers, Koestler gets hold of a sheet of paper filled with numbers that seem to predict tragic events with unbelievable accuracy. The question of determinism may or may not have a monkey wrench thrown in.

The movie opens with an odd, little girl in 1959 putting a page full of numbers into her school’s time capsule that is going to be opened in fifty years. Fifty years later, it’s Koestler’s son Caleb that has this list handed to him. Through happenstance, John has his attention drawn to a certain string on the page which seems to have predicted the 9/11 tragedy.

He starts looking up the numbers, and finds that the predictions are all accurate, and there are only three left. Becoming instantly obsessed (and how could you not?), Koestler tries to figure out the meaning behind the unbelievable numbers, which eventually leads him to the daughter and grandchild of that original odd, little girl. It also leads him to an attempt to prevent one of the tragedies, which doesn’t go quite according to plan. Of course, there are also the mysterious and foreboding people who suddenly seem to be stalking Koestler and his son.

Whatever one’s thoughts on the ultimate story that is played out in Knowing, it’s a film that everyone should see in much the same way that any brilliantly written book ought to be read. Like Alex Proyas‘ other masterpiece, Dark City, the film is a work of art, with direction nearly perfect for its purposes. There are shots, scenes, and compositions that harken back to the most masterful craftsmen, including Hitchcock, who could make you think and feel not so much as a result of what you’re looking at, but how you’re looking at it. The camerawork, editing, and general theory behind the production force an investment because of how the story is being told, even if you lean toward thinking the story is rather hokey. That’s a master at work.

For all that Knowing seems to be giving some sort of goofball answer, it isn’t. It’s just asking questions. The story (and title) pay homage to the age-old battle between those who “know” and those who just keep asking questions. Socrates was the gadfly, because he kept asking questions of those who “knew” that they couldn’t answer. Told he was smart by a God, he shrugged off the idea. Maybe I’m smart because I know I don’t know anything. How can I be smart, I only ask questions?

If you ask enough questions, things get interesting… and weird… and ultimately pretty silly to the common view. If you deny the questions long enough, sometimes things get pretty silly too. Philosophers wonder if there is any physical world at all, and what implications there might be if there isn’t. Scientists, lay people, and other philosophers scoff at such rot and go on their merry way. The next thing you know it turns out the physical world is nothing like it seems, but if we only ask so many questions we get answers we can more or less deal with. The day marches on, and before you know what happened all those fiddly bits of physicality have turned out to just be energy, and we’re coming up with theories of anti-matter and/or “dark matter,” when all our theories of matter matter have lost their sense.

When you’re looking at life, philosophy, religion, and science, asking more and more questions eventually gets you to some really bizarre areas. If you know what you’re doing, answering the questions is neither here nor there really. It’s finding out what work the questions do that has meaning. A curiosity of the religious debate is that while a “it’s either God, or there’s no free will,” statement is often put forward, there is an, “even if it’s God, there’s no free will,” counter that often arises. If God knows everything, he knows everything that is going to happen, and (yada yada yada) there’s no free will.

Wherever you may be on that sort of fence, it’s a hard question to wrangle. There’s no, “well, obviously,” approach to the debate. You’ve got to tear a lot of things apart to start putting a position together, not least of which is, “What does ‘knowing’ mean?”

Someone who is trying to do some real work on figuring out life might ask, “Suppose there is a God, and he knows everything about the future of your life. Would you act differently? And, what does that imply for a general outlook on morality?” The response he gets is, “There is no God.” He asks, “What if there is no physical world? Where is God in that case? Could he show up here?” The answer is, “but there is a physical world.” Someone might as easily dismiss the idea that a few of us were captured by aliens and taken to another world where our identities are implanted into us, and we run around like rats in mazes, but Dark City manages to withstand it fairly well.

If you pay no attention to what Knowing is about, it’s really a great movie. It’s intense, engaging, intriguing, crafted with brilliance and subtlety, and Nicolas Cage gives a solid performance. It also features some remarkable special effects sequences, many of which are brilliant and beautiful for their non-realism in something like the way you might think of a Dali. If you sort of pay attention to what it’s about, it’s a fun trip, even if it’s a crazy kind of ride. If you really focus in on what it’s about, it’s either tremendously stupid, or genius.

But, the first rule of knowing is that you can’t deny the hypothetical.

Rating:

DVD

The DVD release is not exactly loaded with special features, but what it has makes it well worth the price of admission. There is a commentary track by director Alex Proyas which is worth even more than the movie itself (perhaps infinitely so for many). The best commentary track since Roger Ebert’s working of Dark City, it is not to be missed by anyone who considers themselves a fan of filmcraft.

Knowing All is a behind-the-scenes sort of feature which covers a lot of the effects and a variety of other aspects of the movie’s production. It’s pretty interesting, but it’s about standard for such features.

Visions of the Apocalypse is a funny and/or mildly interesting for some, meaningless for others, look at predictions of the end of the world throughout history.