Screen Anarchists On: EX MACHINA

Shelagh Rowan-Legg, Contributing Writer:

What saddens me about Ex Machina is its lost potential. Garland creates an interesting tone and concept around human ego and hubris. But stripped of its window dressing, the film is little more the standard crisis of masculinity story that uses the female character as an object for investigation of the male characters.

From Maria in Metropolis to Pris and Rachael in Blade Runner, female robots are almost exclusively portrayed in relation to their sexuality, as opposed to male or non-gendered robots, who are meant to more fully represent the potential of AI and its meaning for humanity.

Even the posters for the film (which I know Garland would not necessarily be involved in designing) display Ava as an object, either with just her torso (no brain to think with or arms and legs to for independent movement), or the standard photo-from-behind with torso twisted towards the front, so that both buttocks and breasts are on display.

One could argue that Nathan is portrayed as a misogynist: he has created an AI brain capable of passing for human, and he uses it to make a series of ‘programmable woman’, sex robots that, once he is bored with (or perhaps afraid of), he dismantles. This film perhaps criticizes this behaviour. And yet, Ava remains little more than a sex robot, never displaying the advancement of this AI brain because the narrative never allows her to move beyond using her sexuality for power, like a femme fatale. The film’s story remains little more than the standard fear-of-woman tale, a fear that is realized to the detriment of the female character.

Chase Whale, Film Critic:

After it played at SXSW, so many of our colleagues were calling it a "game changer." Two things on that:
1) It's not a game changer and
2) this phrase needs to burn in hell.
It was once a creative way of letting readers know a movie was on a whole new level of awesome, but it's now as watered down as calling a film a masterpiece.

That said, Ex Machina was a solid piece of work one and of the grandest think pieces on artificial intelligence. It also has an unstoppable Oscar Isaac dance scene, this scene alone making Ex Machina a must-see.

Jim Tudor, Featured Critic:

Alex Garland's Ex Machina is a film that does and says a lot of things. There's talk of artificial intelligence and what the future might look like (this is a contemporary story, despite the brilliantly art-directed futuristic trappings all around), as well as a hard drive's worth of thoughts about gender dynamics. But ultimately, if we were to boil it down to one thing, I'd say that it's about control. A pretty ruthless, insipid area of control, at that.

In a brilliantly art-directed austere compound, nerdy programmer Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson) has been brought in special to have a series of sessions with lady-curvy self-aware robot Ava (Alicia Vikander), in order to determine if she's a true A.I. During these sessions, the film's deceptively simple atmospheric score (by Ben Salisbury & Geoff Barrow) gives way to Pink Floyd territory, as a beating heart is audible, just a few layers below the rest of the music.

Yes, Caleb thinks Ava is hot. She has an unblemished human face and hands affixed to her lady-curvy mechanical body, which is complete with transparent portions, exposing robot innards. But clearly, for a tech nerd such as Caleb, that might just be another turn-on. The question then isn't whether or not his attraction is acceptable or permissible, but rather what to do next. The whole movie develops an engaging cat and mouse aspect, particularly when it comes to the character of reclusive tech bazillionaire, played so repulsively well by Oscar Isaac.

Although Garland veers into Movie Exploitation Land late in the game, Alicia Vikander steals the show. In a good way, the male-generated Ex Machina is far less alienating than it could be, even as it inches into Saturn 3 territory. It's being called “the first Great Movie of 2015”, and that may be true.

Ard Vijn, Associate Editor, Features:

What interests me about Ex Machina is that while I personally love the film, I cannot fault Shelagh's negative assessment of it. Alex Garland's debut carries a mean exploitation streak, and uses a science fiction threat as a lure to explore a few older and darker issues.

I'm not even sure it tackles the whole issue of artificial intelligence or consciousness in any way, shape or form. You never get to know if Ava is just a mindless machine, containing an expert system with clever question-answer routines based on imitating millions of worldwide Google-searches, or if she has actual emotions. Is there a ghost in this shell or not? The only answer you get from this film is that men are easily blinded assholes, especially when it comes to something which even remotely looks like a pretty woman.

Not a bad statement in itself perhaps, but certainly not science fiction.

Thing is, to me this seems to be very much an intentional choice by Alex Garland, rather than a weakness in the plot. In languorous shots of nudity (surrounded by mirrors no less, in case you'd miss a bit) Garland dares the viewer to be titillated, while having made it very clear that what is on the inside is all metal and plastic. Do we, as humans, care? Is perception the only thing which matters, and is perceived humanity only skin-deep? Does it even matter if an AI is self-conscious or not, if it can play it believably enough to the perception of us, shallow humans? To me, that is what's at the heart of Ex Machina, and what makes the film interesting.

One final thing I've learned from this film: if you ever build an AI, don't teach it to be a frigging lie detector.
Stupid! STUPID!!

Andrew Mack, Associate Editor, News:

I was goaded into watching Ex Machina this weekend in time for this article because Ard knows what my Kryptonite is. I reminded Ard that I have the Internet, and a long standing relationship with a distributor who is more than willing to throw something in the mail for me whenever I ask. I can see that any time I want, though this is part of the reason why I am about to go into counseling sessions. Let us put that aside for another day.

Ard was right. Twice. Two and a half times if you really want to get technical about it. But it got me thinking. As anti-arousing as my Kryptonite was in Ex Machina, do you want to know who is really going to be responsible for humanity’s downfall when the singularity happens and the robots rise against us? Not just men. Japanese men in particular. The ones who are striving to eliminate the need for female companionship by inventing robots that we can stick our dicks into. They are probably the ones who designed the above version of the Ex Machina poster, with Ava in the ‘turn to the camera while showing off your perfect robot ass’ pose. When this singularity happens mankind will be too busy having sex with their computers to notice the Daniel H Wilson’s of the World yelling, “See! SEE! I told you they wou- gargle choke urgh!”.

All that will be left to defend humankind will be the women and a whole lot of eunuchs. And it will probably be better that way.

I should probably start some sort of campaign that helps nerds get some.

Help stop the robot uprising. Make love to a nerd today! Bring reality back into sexuality!

Something like that. You're welcome, nerds.

Michele "Izzy" Galgana, Contributing Writer:

I saw Ex Machina at a packed sneak preview screening in Cambridge, MA, mostly filled with MIT students. Director and screenwriter Alex Garland attended and stayed for a 20-minute Q&A. (Strangely enough, the questions coming from some of the smartest students in the world weren't nearly as advanced as expected.) Ex Machina is a sci-fi-based story with moments of both comedy, suspense, and horror. Programmer Caleb Smith wins a company lottery to spend a week at the isolated, high-tech home of his brilliant but bro-like CEO, Nathan Bateman. Caleb learns that Nathan has constructed his own AI and meets his experimental creation, Ava.

Caleb's is instructed to evaluate Ava's human qualities, and see if she passes the Turing Test. Along the way, Nathan gets insanely drunk, Ava warns Caleb of Nathan's tendencies to lie, and then everyone takes advantage of each other. To say much more would be spoiling the film. Viewers can expect a well-written sci-fi film with noir leanings in terms of character motivations. Some say that the story is a damnation of patriarchy, some long for sex robots. But like the Jackson Pollock painting that Nathan owns and hangs in his remote hideaway, Ex Machina is a story with many layers and meanings.

Jason Gorber, Featured Critic:

Ex Machina is a high concept film about genius, obsession, lust, love, and violence. It’s a sci-fi thriller in an Asimovian vein, delving deeply into notions of identity while remaining accessible and entertaining.

Directed by Alex Garland, a filmmaker best known for his scripts to the likes of 28 Days Later, Sunshine and Never Let Me Go, Ex Machina continues his pattern of using the tropes of speculative fiction to delve into character interaction.

Obsessing about the small details of the narrative in this case doesn’t help – it is background, frankly, to the mood that Garland and his team of filmmakers have set. The philosophy is important, naturally, but it’s in the character moments – the smile of a woman’s face through some glass, the synchronized disco dancing, the feeling of both opulence and austerity – that gives the film what I hope will be a lasting presence.

Both the stage sets and gorgeous location shooting (the mountains and creeks of Norway, along with some mindboggling architecture) gives the sense of otherworldliness combined with an intense Earthiness, the very paradox between machine and human at the heart of the tale.

It’s easy for some to cynically dismiss this film (just as I felt it too easy for many to fall for the inferior Her by the normally stalwart Spike Jonze). There’s a great deal to admire about this film, and for younger audiences not already drenched in classic sci-fi it may in fact prove to be shocking original. For us that are slightly more jaded, the film benefits greatly from a lack of smarminess. Its dark threads of cynicism are absolutely on point, and its deeper reflections upon identity never get in the way of a strong and entertaining picture.

As a directorial debut by a well-known screenwriter, Garland more than establishes himself as talent to watch. It may be easy to overlaud this film by those craving a bit more intelligence from their sci-fi stories, just as the more seasoned will dismiss its relative lack of deep, novelistic sophistication. For me it’s the perfect balance between the cerebral and the emotional, crafting a thrilling film that still remains intellectually provocative. It’s a difficult creature to build indeed, and I’m pleased that Garland and his team managed to pull of such a feat.

(Editor's note: a longer, even more eloquent version of Jason Gorber's opinion can be found in his review over at Dork Shelf.)

Brian Clarke, Editor-at-Large:

I found much to admire in Ex Machina — namely the precision and restraint of the storytelling, the sets, the visual effects, and Oscar Isaac — but nothing that really made me invested, emotionally or otherwise. Perhaps it was the fact that Caleb’s relationship with the machine, Ava, seemed telegraphed from square one and never felt organic or totally believable. Or maybe macho nerd power struggles, which supply most of the film’s conflict, just don’t interest me that much.

I think, ultimately though, it was the presence of Domhnall Gleeson that perhaps made the film seem disappointing to me. I had recently watched the British sci-fi series Black Mirror for the first time, and remembering Gleeson from one of the episodes made comparison between the excellent series and the film inevitable. The former takes simple premises to thoughtful, emotional and absurd places that I rarely even imagine, whereas Ex Machina essentially sets up a story with a few possible outcomes, and then delivers one of them. There’s nothing particularly wrong with that, and I certainly don’t begrudge Garland for delivering what amounts to a well-made, if not very original, Sci-Fi chamberpiece. I just doubt I’ll remember it very well in the years to come.

Kurt Halfyard, Contributing Writer:

The great science fiction writer-philosopher Stanislaw Lem wrote, "We do not want other worlds, we want mirrors." And to that extent, Alex Garland's ominous take on Artificial Intelligence is just that. It is far less about the potential birth of a new form of intelligence and far more an allegory about how men fear and control women. It demonstrates this both with Oscar Isaac's recluse inventor, Nathan (in his billion dollar bachelor pad) and Domhnall Gleeson's sensitive young programmer, Caleb, who is clearly in over his head talking to AVA, the artificial woman in her glass cage.

Despite all the dialogue about Prometheus and Turing (and Wittgenstein), or the score which echoes the notes from Close Encounters of the Third Kind, the film is best exemplified by how Nathan remembers Ghostbusters - as that movie where the lady-ghost gives Dan Aykroyd a blow-job.

The film is a treasure trove of design and remarkable set-pieces-in-miniature include a bit of spectacular discotheque dancing of Nathan with his mute Japanese assistant-servant-slave girl. Another, involving a secretive whisper between Ava and said assistant at a moment of weakness for both of the men, crystallized the themes of the film, for me.

Ex Machina styles itself as a chess match between two men of different ideologies, but really it is a sex match of dominance for the right to decide the fate of Nathan's Pygmalion. Which makes it a good slice of science fiction, not the least of which because it shows just how much our impulses and biology bring out the worst in us, no matter how much technology, concrete or glass we put in between them. All of that, and the inevitability that women will likely, one day, rule the earth.

And so ends the Screen Anarchists' take on Ex Machina. Some of us were elated, some were "meh". All opinions are valid in their own way, and so is yours.

So please leave your own impression in the comments! HAVE YOUR SAY!