Fast, Cheap & Out of Control

Saw Fast, Cheap & Out of Control, a sprawling documentary about human mastery over nature. We interview four seemingly unrelated men: a topiary gardener, a robotics researcher, a mole-rat specialist, and a lion tamer. The mole-rat specialist tells us that mole-rats are the only communal (ie hive-like) mammal. They behave in ways that are alternate to our own and thus illuminate our own behavior. As the mole-rats are insect-like, so too are the robots of the researcher. He feels he is not so much programming as inventing new forms of life. Some are maladaptive forms but, he smilingly rejoins, it took nature millions of years to develop locomotion and that intelligence is easy in comparison. Old footage of a sci-fi movie showing a scientist holding off a killer robot with a chair segues us into the lion-tamer. He explains that only by bluff and bluster can we keep a lion from attacking us. As soon as a lion attacks you and know he's hurt you, that lion is spoiled: your tricks won't fool it anymore. Incidentally, the lion tamer got into the business after he was entranced by the glamorous TV serials featuring Clyde Beatty as a child. He too has been bluffed. Lastly the topiary gardener talks of his animals as though they're alive. They need constant attention or they will get out of control. His is a sad case. His animals have got the better of him by simply waiting his life out.

The film circularly links these men. Each of them is grappling with nature, trying to control it through study, emulation, or subjugation. There is an ongoing thematic return to circus imagery. This rich symbol is used to slyly imply that the whole struggle is nonsensical, that we shouldn't be intimidated by it, and that it is fundamentally of our own creation anyway. We are also told (obliquely, through juxtaposition and collage) that over-analysis may destroy something unique to our lives. A shot of the interview monitor illuminates this point while raising interesting questions.

This documentary is very loose and personal. It is not a documentary so much as a sort of extended montage. It's really fascinating and I think it may be the best Errol Morris has done yet. There's so much to discuss in it.