.(Dir Alex Garland 2015)
This movie is rated R. Warning there is cutting in it, but not in a self-harm way. This movie follows and employee at a tech company, Caleb, who wins a contest to spend a week with the reclusive CEO of said company, Nathan, on his private island, I think. They're never really clear about where there are, but he has to be flown in by helicopter so... Island? It turns out that Nathan has actually chosen Caleb to act as the "human component" in a Turing test with Nathan's new AI, Ava, who is pictured above. This movie made me very uncomfortable, but I think that the discomfort is intentional. Caleb is thrust into a very uncomfortable situation and it makes sense the viewer would feel that with him. Honestly, I would have left the place as soon as I stepped foot in it, but I have a phobia of being trapped so maybe it's a little different for me. From the beginning, Nathan is very dominating and kinda has a God complex. Also, most of the film takes place in the underground research center so there is very minimal lighting and it all feels very creepy and clinical. In contrast, most scenes that take place between the human characters take place in nature or otherwise setting with earthy tones and natural lighting. This contrast clearly defines the world of machines and the natural world. However, as the film goes on the lines begin to blur, more and more nature seems to seep into Ava's room as Nathan and Caleb begin to interact more and more in unnatural settings. This illustrates Ava becoming more human and Nathan less so in Caleb's eyes. The actors in this movie are amazing. Domhall Gleeson and Oscar Issac I've seen in movies before this. Gleeson played Bill Weasley in the Harry Potter movies and Issac plays Poe in the Star Wars reboot. Alicia Vikander, who played Ava, I've never heard of her before, but I think she did a good job. It's kind of hard to tell though since she literally plays a robot, but I thought she was good. I honestly didn't realize Issac played Nathan until I saw the credits. His character in this film, Nathan, is so different than the roles I've seen him play before, and he played the part so well it never even occurred to me it was the same actor. Despite the constant feeling of discomfort, I didn't hate this film. I wouldn't watch it again, but that's because I'm just not very into this genre. The film was very well-made and the acting was spectacular. AI honestly freaks me out a little so I couldn't tell you why I decided to watch this film in the first place. The one major problem I had with this film was some of the plot. I think they were going for a theme of questioning the morality of creating AI, but it really just got obsessed with the idea of sexy robots. I'm not sure if they were trying to make a commentary on men treating women like objects, or they didn't actually realize disturbing this all was, which is kind of terrifying. Like, this super genius basically just made a huge technological breakthrough in order to make sex slaves, but they just ignore that bit. They talk about how terrible it is that he's essentially killing the AI when he switches them off, but nobody ever mentions the fact that he's also raping them! They act like it's not even a big deal. tl;dr I don't even know what this movie was. It was weird and uncomfortable, but it wasn't terrible. I also cannot for the life of me tell if it's just subtly misogynistic as all get out, or is subtly trying to work in a message on how women are treated in society. I am just very confused guys.
1 Comment
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Aubrey KirchhoffI'm just screaming into the void and somehow getting graded on it. Archives
April 2018
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