"Fantastic Fungi: The Magic Beneath Us" (2019 release;81 min.) is a documentary about the amazing fungi and related mushrooms. As the movie opens, we watch, through the use of time lapse photography, as fungi come about, and how mushrooms, one looking weirder yet more beautiful than the other, rise from the ground up. Narrator Brie Larson informs us of the amazing feats that fungi, neither a plant nor an animal but somewhere in between, can achieve. At this point we are 10 min. into the movie.
Couple of comments: this is the latest from veteran documentarian Louie Schwartzberg. Here he brings us an intimate look at the world of fungi. Using Paul Stamets, a noted expert biologist in fungi, as the steady center, we are given a history and biology lesson on how important fungi are to this planet and to us. The movie takes a number of side bars, including the role of psychedelic mushrooms in the 1960s, and its relevance for today. There is a LOT of information that is unloaded onto us in the interviews and the voice overs, as we watch the fantastic photography. After a while I pretty much toned out the narration and instead just watched. At one point, Stamets refers to the "magical mushrooms mystery tour" and that about sums it up for me.
I saw this film at a special showing this weekend at my local art-house theater here in Cincinnati. The place was PACKED to the rafters, literally sold out down to the last seat. Before the film came on, the theater's manager addressed the crowd, informing us that this is the third time they have shown the movie recently, and each time well over 200 tickets were sold, and that already a 4th showing is planned. "I am as baffled as you are", the manager said. (I personally had expected at most a handful of people as well.) Bottom line: if you have any interest in amazing footage about fungi and mushrooms, I'd readily suggest you check this out, be it in the theater (if you can), on VOD or eventually on DVD/Blu-ray, and draw your own conclusion.
