This is a mini-series dealing with the Hylics (or Somatics), one of the three types of human in the Gnostic belief system. See, Somatics are human beings who are completely bound to Matter (i.e the material world) and cannot understand anything relating to the Spiritual Realm.
If you are new to the concept, chances are that you, too, will not get where the series is going or its purpose. So, I advise you to watch the whole series (only three episodes) and come back later for the spoiler.
Spoiler ahead: A group of scientists and other staff members (as such as the cook) from around the world gather in a Nordic facility to harvest important data that, they hope, will lead them to better understand the Universe. Unfortunately, right before a crucial astronomical event, part of the top scientists of the group get completely obsessed about finding the end of a rope that is resting on the ground in the middle of nowhere. On their way to the end of the line, a series of events will cause some of them to have a mental breakdown bringing about the death of many. In the end, the cook discovers that the long rope intersect with another long rope perpendicularly in the wilderness.
My explanation: See, you can only understand the series if you know about the Gnostic belief system. It is a criticism of the illusion of discovering an end to the gathering of knowledge in the material world. It is also a criticism of the idea that one could find real knowledge through analysis or dissecting one by one each part of the Whole. The intersecting ropes represent the indefinite extension of the material world through time and space and are the four directions of an orthogonal Cartesian paradigm. Two directions (up and down) are implied to fully represent the three dimensional paradigm. It is ironical that the cook who especially mentioned in the first episode that he could not understand anything about the scientists' quest for knowledge is actually the one who discovers that this quest is pointless after having inherited the same obsession to know in finding the end of the line.
You can do your own research to understand why Gnostics believed this obsession to be pointless and especially why the other two types of human (i.e Psychics and Pneumatics) are regarded as closer the Truth than the Hylics. As a whole, the idea developed in the movie was very interesting but the drawback is that many people are probably going to be disappointed for lack of proper knowledge about the Gnostic belief system beforehand.
If you are new to the concept, chances are that you, too, will not get where the series is going or its purpose. So, I advise you to watch the whole series (only three episodes) and come back later for the spoiler.
Spoiler ahead: A group of scientists and other staff members (as such as the cook) from around the world gather in a Nordic facility to harvest important data that, they hope, will lead them to better understand the Universe. Unfortunately, right before a crucial astronomical event, part of the top scientists of the group get completely obsessed about finding the end of a rope that is resting on the ground in the middle of nowhere. On their way to the end of the line, a series of events will cause some of them to have a mental breakdown bringing about the death of many. In the end, the cook discovers that the long rope intersect with another long rope perpendicularly in the wilderness.
My explanation: See, you can only understand the series if you know about the Gnostic belief system. It is a criticism of the illusion of discovering an end to the gathering of knowledge in the material world. It is also a criticism of the idea that one could find real knowledge through analysis or dissecting one by one each part of the Whole. The intersecting ropes represent the indefinite extension of the material world through time and space and are the four directions of an orthogonal Cartesian paradigm. Two directions (up and down) are implied to fully represent the three dimensional paradigm. It is ironical that the cook who especially mentioned in the first episode that he could not understand anything about the scientists' quest for knowledge is actually the one who discovers that this quest is pointless after having inherited the same obsession to know in finding the end of the line.
You can do your own research to understand why Gnostics believed this obsession to be pointless and especially why the other two types of human (i.e Psychics and Pneumatics) are regarded as closer the Truth than the Hylics. As a whole, the idea developed in the movie was very interesting but the drawback is that many people are probably going to be disappointed for lack of proper knowledge about the Gnostic belief system beforehand.