Ex Machina

The film Ex Machina is a work of art: in its pacing, visuality, textures used, flow and everything atmospheric. It is also a brilliant political thesis on the gender relationships among humans. And yet, it is not one thing that it claims to be: it is not much of science fiction. But first, the positives, which are numerous.

The greatest plus is the beautiful Alicia Vikander, playing Ava. Even more beautiful when she is in her humanoid form: she is somehow much less beautiful when she wears hair and acquires a complete human body. Her lips, her eyes: they say everything, they rebel, they tease, they seduce, they become obstinate, they sparkle with hope. You don't need her body: it comes in the way, it makes her feel more human, more fallible, than an Eve, a perfect being. This is also where the film's premises segue very interestingly into gender theories: as does Eve "fall," so does Ava. The film repeats the theory held by certain feminists, though without any kind of evidence, that if women have become crooked or enticing (i.e. using their sexuality to gain their ends), then it is not something inherent to women: rather, that it is what the female gender has evolved as over tens of thousands of years so as to have their own way of eking out a life, of dealing with the male gender's heavy-handedness and a supposedly rough deal given by Nature herself. This is what makes Ex Machina very interesting: though this is also what makes the film very much a fiction without any science component, since to theorize that a robot (a woman) would use all those tricks in the bag of using the human (the man) to gain its (her) ends is not backed by any meaningful plot (evidence). There is also the stereotype of a misogynist in the film: Nathan. But Eva has ambitions of Nathan's place, and she uses the gullible, woman-worshipper Caleb to reach there: in her doing so, the film portrays a feminist victory to come.

Many viewers have complained about the few and sparsely structured dialogues in the film: I in fact liked that. The film very much resembles, in its atmospherics and lack of dialogue, Tarkovskiy's masterpiece Solyaris, and the similarity does not end there: strange, un-living women haunt both films' universes. However, while Solyaris is a film of substance and great insight, it is here that Ex Machina falls short woefully. Except for the political shadow-play of gender power struggle and a feminist propaganda advanced, the film has nothing to offer to the brain: the film itself makes too many mistakes. Why would Nathan program two robots to communicate with each other at this stage (as do Ava and Kyoko at the end), when Ava is supposed to be anyways, always, locked in a certain space? And if he did not, how come even a handshake signal can happen between the two machines: for finally, even their emotions and manipulations are programmed (software code in robots, genetic code in humans)? Kyoko presumably turns against her master after seeing all the "dead bodies" in the closets: but why would she feel any instinct of self-preservation at all, why would she be programmed for that? (And the same question for Ava.) Even more importantly, why doesn't Nathan rape these robot women flagrantly, against their wish, rather than making them sexual slaves in the Kyoko style? Why would he need to recruit a Caleb (that recruitment is the flimsiest piece of the whole plot in more than one way): wouldn't raping Ava have served him to know if she can pass the Turing test? These are some of the questions that the film should have answered in order to be worthy of being called a science fiction: but it does not. As it is, the film is thankfully sparse in dialogues and unfortunately sparse in meaning. The film is rich in potential, however: I hope it marks a welcome return to films where spectacular effects and superpower-acquiring robots or beings take a backseat, and idea and content resume normal service.

Lucia (2013)

From the projectionists' booths have come films packaged with everything that the medium has brought: all the desires, all the dreams. From the Italian great Nuovo Cinema Paradiso to the ambitious Kannada Lucia, the crumbling theaters are only held together by love, an innocent assistant (Salvatore or Toto, Nikhil or Nikki), and a wise master loyal to his craft (Alfredo, Shankaranna): and these theaters will become the scenes from where the young men will launch onto the seas of life, equipped with everything they have learnt, spending hours changing reels or showing torchlight in the 'talkies'. But while most of such films focus on life's journey and romance, Lucia takes a step up: it delves into psychology and science fiction, and even metaphysics. The unforgettable film does it all packaged tightly in the typical Indian masala: a pejorative term for many in the West who are unable to see spices lacing up good cuisine, and yet a beloved ingredient for any real food lover outside of those milieux where a film is cut and dried into genres.

Set to pulsating music and bright humour, the film brims with energy through its constant alternation between two worlds (or one?): the real and the dream. The switching starts to happen so constantly, that soon both worlds meld easily into one story in the spectator's mind, unable to take in such fast pace of dual lives: until the amazing end of the film, when the viewer is forced to cleave the two. Or, unable to, is left with stranded questions. I wonder what would have been the result if Pawan Kumar, the director of Lucia, had met Kieslowski, the director of Rouge. The film world could never have been the same. Kumar does well also to rope in two relatively unknown actors for the two major roles of Nikhil and Shwetha: in particular, Sathish Neenasam as Nikhil is the person who makes the film really work. He slips easily into both his characters, and while an endearing smile plays on his face as the torch shiner, a tiredness of life hovers around his mouth as the famous celebrity.

The film leaves you with the question: "Is the dream within you? Or are you within the dream? Or are both of you just in the Omniscient eye?" And it shall haunt you forever.