THOUGHTFUL EXPLORATION OF INQUISITIVE MODERN MINDS.

Byline: Janet Maslin The New York Times

Errol Morris' delightfully exotic documentary ``Fast, Cheap and Out of Control'' explores the curious thoughts of four visionaries: a topiary gardener, a lion tamer, a robot scientist and an expert in the social behavior of naked mole rats. All are interesting, but certainly the most fascinating figure here is the man behind the camera. The director of ``The Thin Blue Line'' and ``A Brief History of Time'' remains a one-of-a-kind filmmaker capable of melding science, philosophy, poetry, and sheer whimsy into an elaborate meditation on mankind's mysteries. He's as good a teacher as he is a filmmaker, which is saying a lot.

In ``Fast, Cheap and Out of Control,'' which takes its title from a hypothesis about sending robots out to explore the universe, Morris roams from garden to circus to laboratory in search of models for human behavior. He gracefully integrates conversations with four experts who, on first impression, would seem to have nothing in common. There is George Mendoca, who has spent his lifetime envisioning and pruning topiary animal shapes and who has learned to adapt his thinking to nature's patterns in the process. ``This is all from memory,'' he explains overmodestly. ``If you know what an animal looks like, you just start making the animal.''

On the other end of the spectrum from natural to mechanical is Rodney Brooks, the MIT robot scientist who smiles with a wild gleam in his eye when describing, say, how watching a group of ants haul a piece of breakfast cereal inspired one of his grander experiments. This display prompted him to consider the ants' collective pattern and whether such collaborative effort had a place in the robot world. Contraptions with bread-related names (Bran, Wonder, English Muffin) are seen skittering around his laboratory, giving life to this abstract theory.

Also here, and most entertaining about his research, is Ray Mendez, who wears a butterfly-patterned bow tie as he gleefully explains the ramifications of his mole rat studies. ``This has got nothing to do with science,'' he says about his research into the creatures' social patterns. ``I look at it strictly from the point of view of self-knowledge.''

Dave Hoover, a lion tamer, brings no less wisdom to bear upon the more practical problem of how to understand what a lion is thinking and how to avoid being eaten while inside a cage. A trio of lions with singed fur, having been coaxed by Hoover to leap through rings of fire at a circus, attest to the efficacy of his thinking.

Now anyone could find four offbeat experts and edit their observations into some kind of coherent whole. But Morris, in a film elegantly photographed by Robert Richardson (who has shot almost all of Oliver Stone's films) and scored with enchantingly weird music by Caleb Sampson, aspires to much more. Morris imaginatively weaves together his speakers' ideas to achieve a much larger overview than any of them achieves individually, and to make haunting connections among man, beast and machine. He starts simply and builds to unexpected metaphysical heights, expressed by images as simple, powerful and mysterious as circus elephants defying their elephant nature to walk upright in a line.

``Fast, Cheap and Out of Control'' intersperses such eerily poetic images with flashes of the humor and even absurdity that come with life in an offbeat profession. (``They can nail you before you say oops,'' says Hoover about life with lions.) The film also relies on slow motion, odd angles and the special exaggeration of circus tricks to heighten its inquisitive spirit. The ultimate effect, not one often achieved on screen these days, is to illuminate and invigorate the viewer with a sense of mysterious possibility. ``Does a bird fly better than a 747?'' Brooks asks rhetorically. ``Well, it depends on what you're trying to do.''

THE FACTS

The film: ``Fast, Cheap and Out of Control'' (not rated).

Behind the scenes: Directed by Errol Morris. Produced by Morris, Julia Sheehan, Mark Lipson and Kathy Trustman. Released by Sony Pictures Classics.

Running time: One hour, 22 minutes.

Playing: Nuart in West Los Angeles.

Our rating: Three and One Half Stars.