Spaceship Earth

It was made before phrases like “social distancing” and “self-isolation” were part of our everyday vocabulary. But the release of Spaceship Earth amid the 2020 coronavirus pandemic gives it an almost eerie relevance.

The documentary’s unintentional timeliness stems from its attempt to revisit and reconsider the ramifications of the 1991 social and scientific experiment known as Biosphere 2, which serves as the ultimate exercise in quarantine.

Topicality aside, the film brings a fascinating new perspective, mixing abundant archival footage and new interviews with the eight volunteers who spent two years inside a giant enclosed ecosystem in the Arizona desert, ostensibly without any outside access to food, water, air, or modern technology. Fortunately for us, they lived to tell about it.

Besides the quirky daredevils known as “biospherians,” the film explores the creation of the massive project by a commune-like group of eccentric, free-spirited environmentalists — who called themselves “synergists” — as an attempt to create a self-sustaining biosphere that could combat global warming and serve as a prototype for human life in outer space.

As directed by Matt Wolf (Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project), it also delves into the legacy of Biosphere 2, which was dubiously shrouded in controversy at the time, in part because of a lack of transparency, questionable scientific practices, and secretive financial intentions.

While it captured national media coverage, critics dismissed Biosphere 2 as a game show or a glorified vacation, or maybe a forerunner to reality shows like “Big Brother.” One scientist in the film called it “trendy ecological entertainment.”

The synergists try to justify themselves as a collective whose theatrics are driven by experiential global sustainability, but they probably don’t care what you think. Even if you roll your eyes at their ideas, you have to admire their sincerity and conviction.

Were they visionaries or wackos? That question hasn’t changed in 30 years, but perhaps the answer has. The experiment was widely portrayed as a spectacular folly at the time, but might have more value in retrospect.

That’s one reason Spaceship Earth is so consistently compelling. It comes as close as possible to putting you in the shoes of the eight human guinea pigs, adding a layer of hypothetical intrigue. So was Biosphere 2 a success or a failure? More importantly, does it even matter?

Not rated, 113 minutes.