8/13/15: More Human Than the Humans

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Alejandro Martínez, Antonio Banderas, Arthur C. Clarke, Automata, Birgitte Hjort Sørensen, Blade Runner, clocksmith, co-writers, David Ryall, Dylan McDermott, dystopia, dystopian future, end of humanity, future of mankind, Gabe Ibáñez, gorgeous cinematography, grim future, husband-wife relationship, Igor Legarreta, insurance investigator, Jacq Vaucan, Javier Bardem, Javier Sánchez Donate, Kes Bonnet, man vs machine, Melanie Griffith, multiple writers, near future, nuclear batteries, Patrick Salvador, Philip K. Dick, radiation, Robert Forster, robots, sci-fi, science-fiction, self-aware robots, solar storms, thought-provoking, Tim McInnerny, wasteland, writer-director, Zacarías M. de la Riva

At what point, exactly, does a robot cease to exist as merely a “machine” and become something more? It’s a question that’s been an integral part of science fiction practically from the genre’s creation, a question that’s been examined by literary luminaries like Isaac Asimov, Philip K. Dick and Arthur C. Clarke, across works as unforgettable as “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?”, “I, Robot” and “2001.” The questions are always the same fundamental ones: What is the primary difference between intelligent machines and humans? Can a machine ever “become” human or, at the least, human-like? Do robots possess the capacity for emotions? Can you program “sadness,” “anger,” “hatred” or “love”? If robots were capable of self-awareness, would this be the tipping point?

Cinema, for its part, has been asking the same questions for almost as long as we’ve had movies: Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927) is probably the first example of a cinematic tradition that’s been going on for almost a century, a tradition that includes such diverse films as Forbidden Planet (1956), 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), Westworld (1972), The Black Hole (1979), Alien (1979), Blade Runner (1982), The Terminator (1984), Short Circuit (1986), RoboCop (1987), Cherry 2000 (1987), A.I. (2001), I, Robot (2004), WALL-E (2008), Moon (2009) and Chappie (2015). One of the newest inclusions into this amazingly eclectic group, Spanish writer-director Gabe Ibáñez’s Automata (2014), also ends up being one of the better ones: barring a few missteps and unnecessary clutter, Automata is a gorgeously filmed, thought-provoking look at what separates us from the machines…and why they just might be better at “living” than we’ll ever be.

The year is 2044 and the Earth has been decimated by solar storms that have, in effect, turned the whole planet into a radioactive wasteland. 99% of the population has died, leaving the survivors to take shelter in the few remaining cities, the equivalent of ants scurrying to get away from the magnifying glass. Since atmospheric disturbances have wrecked holy hell with radio transmissions, electrical grids and the like, technology has regressed to your typical dystopic state of being: in other words, humanity is completely and irreversibly fucked, our future sizzling away like so much fat in the fire.

Into this rather terrible situation comes the ubiquitous ROC Corporation (think RoboCop’s Omni Corp and you’re in the right neighborhood), creator of the “primitive” Automata Pilgrim 7000s, a type of robot which does everything from building the walls and coverings which protect the last cities to helping take care of kids, cooking meals and fighting wars (despite our truncated timeline, humans still need to kill each other, apparently, which always seems to be our one constant). By the time the film opens, there are millions of Automatas running around, each one governed by two very fundamental protocols: robots may not harm any form of life (including themselves) and they are forbidden from altering themselves or other robots. Like the Prime Directives in RoboCop, these are unbreakable, unalterable and, obviously, in place to help preserve humanity’s increasingly precarious place in the pecking order.

Our “Deckard” in this particular instance is Jacq Vaucan (Antonio Banderas), one of ROC Corp’s ubiquitous insurance investigators. Jacq’s job is to run around and look into any and all insurance claims levied against his employers: when we first meet him, he’s looking into the case of an Automata that’s been accused of brushing a family dog to death. Jacq is completely burnt-out (no pun intended) at his job and dreams only of moving his pregnant wife, Rachel (Birgitte Hjort Sørensen), to the seashore, if such a thing still exists in this brave new world.

As befits the “one last case” trope, Jacq is called on to investigate one of ROC Corp’s Automata that has been unceremoniously shot in the face by wastoid police officer Sean Wallance (Dylan McDermott). It seems that the “dead” robot had been modified in some pretty significant ways: not only was it capable of “self-repair” (a big no-no) but it also seemed to be smuggling illegal parts (an even bigger no-no). Jacq’s boss, Mr. Bold (Robert Forster), gives him the news that he’s been impatiently waiting for: find someone, anyone, to blame for the modified robot and Jacq will earn a one-way ticket to his dream destination (provided, of course, that it’s real and not an actual dream destination).

From here, Jacq dives into the deep end of the case, tracking the robot’s “clocksmith” all the way from the city’s stereotypically dystopic slums to a creepy android sex parlor and, finally, into the radioactive wastelands colloquially dubbed “The Sandbox.” As Jacq learns more and more about the modified Automata and its ultimate purpose, he also uncovers hints of a wide-ranging conspiracy, a conspiracy that could affect the very future of mankind. With no one but a group of Automata to guide him, Jacq must confront the truth behind the robots, a truth that will eventually lead him to a godlike being and, just perhaps, the long-rumored ocean that he’s always yearned to see. What separates us from the machines? As Vaucan will find out, quite a bit less than we might think.

Right off the bat, Ibáñez’s Automata is an absolutely stunning piece of film-craft: to not put too fine a point on it, the production design (courtesy of Patrick Salvador), cinematography (beautifully handled by Alejandro Martínez) and general mise en scene (Kes Bonnet handled the art design) are nearly flawless. For a film with an estimated budget of $7 million, Automata looks like it cost roughly fives times that. Using a mix of CGI backgrounds and actual animatronics for the Automata, the film is completely immersive and, to be honest, looks just as good as any of the accepted modern sci-fi prestige pictures: again, it’s hard to not belabor the point but Automata blew me away early and managed to keep impressing me for the entirety of its nearly two-hour run-time. If the film has any issues (and it has a couple), they have nothing whatsoever to do with the look, ambiance or general production.

Performance-wise, Automata’s cast is exceptionally solid: Banderas is fantastic as the world-weary investigator, McDermott turns in one of his patented “loose cannon” performances, Forster is suitably paternal as Jacq’s kind-hearted boss and Tim McInnerny makes a great villain as ultra-slimy “company man,” Vernon Conway. Sørensen does a fine job with what she’s given, although her character doesn’t really come into her own until the film’s final third. There’s also a really nice, subtle vocal performance by Javier Bardem as the godlike Automata: he brings a perfect combination of intelligence, gravitas and parental concern to the performance and is definitely one of the film’s highlights, even if he doesn’t get much screen-time.

In fact, the only performance that doesn’t quite connect is Melanie Griffith’s take on Dr. Dupre: even though the actress gives it her all, her performance is never quite as realistic as the others’. Too often, it feels like she’s attempting to make sense of nonsensical dialogue and she never really sells the character: the scenes between her and Banderas have an awkward quality that’s rather off-putting. Ironically, Griffith is much more convincing in her dual-performance as the voice of Cleo, the sexbot: her vocal performance is much more subtle and nuanced than her “full” performance.

One of the most impressive aspects of Automata is how it references and takes elements from other classic sci-fi films, yet manages to make them seem wholly organic. In many ways, the film throws Blade Runner and Westworld into a blender and seasons the concoction with various elements from films like Alien and RoboCop: the Automata “weep” white tears, ala Alien…the godlike robot has a weary intelligence and understanding of humanity’s place in the universe, ala Blade Runner’s Roy Batty…there are sex-bots, like in Cherry 2000 (Griffith’s vocal performance as Cleo is also a great reference to her role in the ’80s film)…the giant hologram ads that “roam” the city are reminiscent of Blade Runner’s chaotic culture-shock…they all add up to make Automata seem like a part of a much bigger universe, a much further-reaching combined aesthetic.

Unlike many multiplex sci-fi thrillers, Automata is an endlessly intelligent film, one that’s not afraid to offer its complex science and mythology with a minimum of hand-holding. The film might open with the equivalent of an info dump but, in a way, that’s also to be expected: when you have a lot of details to impart and a limited time to impart them, sometimes the best way is also the bluntest way. At times, Automata threatens to become too complex and confusing, especially once we get into the robots’ “mind kernals” and their attempts at “self-improvement” and evolution. This, of course, is always the danger one assumes when dealing with a genuinely smart film: it makes demands of the audience and, if you aren’t willing to stay engaged, you’ll most likely be left behind.

In fact, if I had any real issues with Ibáñez’s film (he co-wrote the script with Igor Legarreta and Javier Sánchez Donate), they all lie with the unfortunately hackneyed, old-as-the-hills “corporate conspiracy” that lurks at the heart of the film. Without that silly, action-oriented facet, Automata would be a much slower, more thought-provoking film, much closer to the grandiose vision of Blade Runner than it ultimately is. We’ve already been shown such wonders by the time that an anonymous group of authority figures determine that Jacq “knows too much” that it feels like a serious cop-out: for all of the film’s grand vision and intelligence, the climax still devolves into one of those de rigueur “final shootouts,” as Jacq battles Vernon for ultimate supremacy. The conspiracy angle also introduces at least two subplots too many, subplots which help to drag the film down rather than propel it forward.

Ultimately, however, my quibbles with Automata are minor: this is first-class, grade-A filmmaking all the way, the kind of intelligent sci-fi film that should make any fan of the genre sit up and take notice. While Ibáñez and his extraordinarily talented cast and crew don’t blaze the kind of bold, new trails that pioneers like 2001 and Blade Runner did, they still turn in a film that stands, head and shoulders, above similar pretenders. There is genuine beauty here, along with a tremendously powerful emotional core and some truly unforgettable images: the scene where the Automatas create life is one of the single, greatest nods to Frankenstein that I’ve ever seen and would be a crowning showpiece in any film. As only his second full-length directorial effort, Automata showcases Gabe Ibáñez as a truly formidable new talent, a visionary who will practically demand my attention, from this point on.

If you’re a fan of good filmmaking, I heartily suggest that you follow along, too. I’m not sure if Ibáñez is the next Ridley Scott or merely the next Alex Proyas: either way, I have a feeling that he’s got plenty of amazing things to show us.

3/18/15: The Heart, Wrung Dry, Is a Stone

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Aimee Mullins, alcohol abuse, alcoholism, Alex McGregor, black market, Christy Pankhurst, cinema, David Butler, David Clatworthy, drama, drought, dysfunctional family, dystopian future, Elle Fanning, Ernest Holm, family in crisis, farmers, father-daughter relationships, father-son relationships, film reviews, films, Flem Lever, Giles Nuttgens, Jake Paltrow, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Liah O'Prey, Michael Shannon, Movies, neo-Westerns, Nicholas Hoult, Robert Hobbs, robots, sci-fi, single father, The Grapes of Wrath, There Will Be Blood, tragedy, voice-over narration, water rights, water wars, Westerns, writer-director, Young Ones

Pitched somewhere in the middle of the triangle formed by Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, Anderson’s There Will Be Blood (2007) and Stanley’s Hardware (1990), writer-director Jake Paltrow’s Young Ones (2014) is a powerfully acted neo-Western that blends intense character drama with dystopic sci-fi. If the whole thing is somewhat deflated by a rather meandering ending, it does nothing to take away from the journey, which is packed with memorable characters, some rather ingenious plot developments and genuine emotional power.

We’re dumped into a world of the future, although of 20 years or 100, we’re never really told. Stylistically, it’s pure Western, as the land has been in the grip of a devastating drought for long enough to turn everything into parched desert…everything, that is, except for the lush, green areas that are served by the “state” waterworks: the “wet areas,” as they’re called. In these areas, things function much as we might expect, albeit with the extra oomph provided by futuristic robotics and technology. In the “dry” areas, however, it’s a hard-scrabble existence, punctuated by harsh living conditions, sudden death and constant water wars: the untamed West, if you will.

Our lowly protagonist, Ernest Holm (Michael Shannon) is one of the farmers who’s stuck it out, along with his son, Jerome (Kodi Smit-McPhee) and daughter, Mary (Elle Fanning). Mother Katherine (Aimee Mullins) is living in a care facility after suffering a crippling injury of some sort, rendering Ernest a single father, of sorts. He’s a former alcoholic who makes ends meet by delivering supplies to the very same corrupt waterworks employees who continually resist running much-needed waterlines through Ernest’s sun-baked land: talk about your nasty Catch-22s! After his only well goes dry, poor Ernest is reduced to buying his water from gas station-style pumps and praying for much-needed, long-absent rain.

It wouldn’t be a Shakespearian tale without some Shakespearian intrigue, however, and we get that in bulk with Mary’s boyfriend, the elegantly sleazy Flem Lever (Nicholas Hoult). Flem is a smooth talker with a new con for every day of the week and a bone to pick with Ernest, thanks to a perceived slight involving the land that Flem’s father used to own.  As Flem exerts more influence over the increasingly rebellious Mary, he butts heads with Ernest in a million different ways. Through it all, Jerome, our constant narrator, observes it all with his slightly detached gaze: ever faithful to his father, yet caught in Flem’s thrall, nonetheless.

Trouble strikes when the Holm family mule heads to mule heaven and Ernest is forced to buy a robotic replacement (the robot auction is a real thing of beauty). This kicks off a series of unfortunate events that culminates with Flem stealing the “mule,” Ernest tracking him down and…well…”something” happening in the desolate wasteland, far away from prying eyes. What it is, exactly, we won’t know for some time but the tragedy results in Flem becoming the de facto head of the family, much to Jerome’s consternation. When the suspicious son gets the full details on what happened in the desert, however, thanks to the robot’s previously undisclosed video recording function…well, let’s just say that there’ll be hell to pay and leave it at that, eh?

Despite some occasional familiarities with other films (There Will Be Blood was never far from my mind, at any time), Young Ones is a strikingly fresh, thoroughly intriguing film. The script is quite clever and unfolds is a completely organic manner, with some surprising (yet always logical) twists. The blending of dystopic sci-fi and Westerns is seamless and quite magical, if I do say so, creating a believably immersive world, one that’s built up by a million little details and subtle touches. It’s the best kind of world-building, one that’s accomplished by layers rather than a sledge-hammer.

Young Ones is a very dialogue-heavy film, without a doubt, but Paltrow’s script and cast are more than up for the challenge. In most cases, anything this “talky” might become tedious but some of the film’s greatest pleasures come from the frank, in-depth conversations that the characters, particularly Ernest and Flem, have with other. There’s a wry lyricism to Paltrow’s lines that makes everything simultaneously grim, yet rich: it’s a quality that I associate with Cormac McCarthy and, while Paltrow isn’t quite there yet, I can easily see him getting there in the future.

Without a doubt, one of the shining stars in Young One’s crown is its phenomenal cast. Most of the time, it’s an easy best that Michael Shannon will be the best thing in whatever he’s in: there’s an honesty to him that makes it all but impossible to tear your eyes from the screen whenever he’s there and Ernest is one of his best, most complex roles in some time. In this case, however, Shannon gets a run for his money from Smit-McPhee, Hoult and the rest of the superb cast: everyone brings their A-game, making this one of the most exquisitely acted films I’ve seen in some time. To be honest, Hoult and Smit-McPhee give two of the best performances of the year, playing two of the most radically different characters possible. Only Fanning, normally great, falls short of the mark: chalk it up to the character or the performance, but Mary is a constantly petulant, unpleasant and hysterical character, never sympathetic, even during the moment’s where the film practically demands it.

I’d also be remiss if I didn’t mention the ending, which sputters into the station after the film runs out of steam some 20 minutes before the finish line. It’s the odd deflating moment in a script that normally runs like a Swiss clock, feeling like nothing less than Paltrow ran out of things to say before he ran out of film: again, only notable due to the fact that the rest of the film moved so effortlessly.

That being said, Young Ones is still a mighty impressive film and bodes quite well for Paltrow’s future. When the film really works, there’s a sad sense of poetry that says more about the death of the idealized West than a million cowboy hats ever could. Giles Nuttgens’ cinematography is often quite beautiful (the mournful shots of the robotic mule pacing across the mesa are, quite simply, stunning) and there’s a sense of austere seriousness to the proceedings that fits it all like a glove. While there’s something inherently tragic about the Holm family and their blood-spattered legacy, the only tragic thing about Jake Paltrow (and yes, in case you’re wondering, he’s Gwyneth’s brother) is that we’ll need to wait for his next film. When you’ve got something like Young Ones on your calling card, the sky, quite frankly, is the limit.

6/15/14: The Face of Things to Come

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A Brave New World, A Tale of Two Sisters, Adam and Eve, Antarctic Journal, anthology films, Biblical references, Buddha, cinema, comedies, Doomsday Book, dramas, emergency shelters, end of the world, enlightenment, film reviews, films, foreign films, Fritz Lang, Go Joon-hee, Happy Birthday, Heavenly Creature, horror films, I Saw the Devil, Jin Ji-hee, Kim Jee-Woon, Kim Kang-woo, Korean films, man vs machine, meteor, monks, Movies, multiple directors, multiple writers, online shopping, Park Hae-il, philosophical films, robot dogs, robots, Ryoo Seung-bum, sci-fi, science-fiction, short films, South Korea, technological advancement, The Last Stand, vegetarian vs carnivore, writer-director, Yim Pil-sung, zombies

Since as far back as humans have been creating technology, other humans have been worried about the effects of said technology on the rest of humanity. Computers, machines and technology make our lives possible, in certain ways (pacemakers, modern medical equipment and airplanes, to name but a few), while making them immeasurably more enjoyable in other ways (the internet, streaming movies and digital watches spring to mind). On the other hand, it’s hard to shake the nagging notion that we might be biting off a bit more than we can chew, technologically speaking. As machines, computers and artificial intelligence continue to evolve and become faster, smarter and more independent, will we eventually come to that nightmarish sci-fi scenario where the machines will become our masters? Should we even attempt to create a machine that thinks, let alone feels (providing this were possible) or is the resultant competition with humanity just a little too close for comfort? Or, to frame it in a more pop culture savvy way: at which point do we move from Robby the Robot to Demon Seed (1977)?

Films have been examining this question of “machine vs man” for at least the past eighty years, by this point, and the resulting consensus usually isn’t great: if left unchecked, technology may very well stomp the rest of us into the ground. One need look no further than The Terminator (1984) or The Matrix (1999) to get some notion of Hollywood’s take on this but overseas filmmakers have been dealing with the same subject since at least Fritz Lang’s visionary Metropolis (1927). Technological dystopia is perfect fodder for the movies, allowing filmmakers to not only traffic in the inherent fears associated with increased technological advancement (We’re going to be replaced!) but also in the inherent sense of wonder associated with fantastic new technological advancements (Look how neat and shiny our replacements are!): it’s a real “have your cake and eat it” scenario which, in certain ways, is what pop culture is all about. The recent South Korean science-fiction anthology film, Doomsday Book (2012), takes this technological conflict and runs with it, coming up with three separate, unique but, ultimately, cosmically intertwined tales that look at the Venn diagram where humans, machines and the unknown overlap.

While there’s been quite an abundance of horror-related film anthologies over the years, with films like Creepshow (1982), The Theatre Bizarre (2011), Chillerama (2011), V/H/S (2012) and The ABCs of Death (2012) stepping up for the Amicus-related anthologies that sprang up in the ’60s and ’70s, sci-fi-related film anthologies have been a bit fewer and further between. In fact, I’m hard-pressed to think of any sci-fi related anthologies at all, unless one wants to count The Twilight Zone television series. As strange as it seems, Doomsday Book really does seem to be the first of its kind or, at the very least, the first of its kind to surface in any kind of really accessible way. Unlike horror anthologies like The Theatre Bizarre or V/H/S, there is no wrap-around story in Doomsday book: rather, each of the three stories within are loosely connected in that they depict the various ways (albeit fantastic) that mankind might meet its end in our technologically advanced future. The first and final stories, A Brave New World and Happy Birthday are written and directed by Yim Pil-sung, while the middle (and best) story, The Heavenly Creature, is written and directed by Kim Jee-woon. All in all, Doomsday Book ends up being a fascinating, thought-provoking and extremely well-made film: if this really is one of the first sci-fi anthology films, let’s hope that it spawns a wave of worthy imitators.

The anthology kicks off with its most traditional, least sci-fi-oriented story, A Brave New World. Poor Yoon Seok-woo (Ryoo Seung-bum): he’s a nerdy military research scientist who’s been left behind to take care of his parents’ filthy house while his mother and father (Lee Kan-hee and Kim Roi-ha) take his bratty little sister (Hwang Hyo-eun) on a vacation. Seok-woo tosses all of the nasty kitchen refuse into the waste disposal bin and we follow the progress of one particular apple, which appears to be more rot than fruit, as it moves through various stages of the recycling process. In a supremely ironic development, the apple ends up coming back home to Seok-woo in the form of fertilizer that was fed to cattle that he consumes at a fancy restaurant with his girlfriend of three days, Kim Yoo-min (Go Joon-hee). Suffice to say that the food ends up disagreeing with Seok-woo and Yoo-min in the worst way possible, eventually leading to a full-scale onslaught of the walking dead. Writer-director Yim Pil-sung manages to craft a “traditional” zombie film in a highly unorthodox way, making for a consistently engaging and intriguing offering. Fusing a half a dozen disparate themes (ecological safeguards, food safety, vegetarian vs carnivorous lifestyles, familial responsibilities vs personal freedom, loss of inhibitions leading to a higher state of being, evolution of the human race) with an often unflinching level of gore and some sharp, incisive humor, A Brave New World is a pretty exemplary little zombie film. At 39 minutes, the film is actually about 10 minutes too short and could have used a punchier finale (although the under-lying symbolism is spot-on and really well-executed), but it’s a nice dispatch about the million little ways in which humans will eventually wipe ourselves from the planet.

Moving from the fairly ridiculous to the positively sublime, Kim Jee-Woon’s Heavenly Creature follows and must certainly stand as some of the more intriguing 40 minutes I’ve managed to spend in some time. Jee-woon’s film is a slow, solemn, hushed mini-masterpiece about the microscopic differences between man and machine, at least as far as enlightenment goes. The short ends up being the best kind of film in that it absolutely demands contemplation and reflection, not only during but also afterwards: I can’t imagine anyone being less than fully engaged with the short at all times. Heavenly Creature concerns a particularly vexing case for a young robot technician named Park Do-won (Kim Kang-woo). Do-won is a nice enough, if rather put-upon, robot expert who’s fully prepared to deal with the excruciating minutiae of life (an exceedingly daffy next-door neighbor and her malfunctioning robot dog) but is woefully unprepared to deal with the really big questions. One of these big questions rears its ugly head, however, when Do-won is sent on a service call to a local monastery in order to check on their RU-4 series robot named In-myung (Park Hae-il). It seems that In-myung has achieved enlightenment (or at least claims to) and the monks want Do-won to make sure that In-myung isn’t defective. As Do-won complains, however, you can open up a robot and fix a short-circuit, but you can’t run a system check to see if it’s actually Buddha.

In-myung is an exceptionally intelligent, well-spoken robot, however, and seems so sure of itself that, in short order, Do-won isn’t sure what to believe. Things become more complicated when his superiors from UR International show up and want In-myung powered-off, one way or the other. Seems that the powers that be are a little nervous about a robot being able to achieve enlightenment: if the RU-4s can do, well…they can probably do just about anything, including replacing humanity as the dominant “species.” In-myung may be more human than it seems, however, and the notion of self-preservation can be a powerful one: what might a supremely intelligent robot that thinks it’s Buddha do when its back is to the wall? What if, as the corporate bigwigs fear, the evolution of one group comes at the inevitable demise of another? But, most importantly: can a machine achieve enlightenment?

There are no shortage of big discussions going on in Heavenly Creature, which makes it all the more astounding that the short (only 40 minutes) manages to also be such a visceral, dramatic experience. While I would never dream of giving away any of the short’s numerous surprises and delights, suffice to say that In-myung leads to some truly thrilling moments, balanced out with some genuinely sad, powerful ones. In-myung is a truly awe-inspiring creation and any of the numerous scenes of him engaging in regular activities such as praying and talking inspire as much wonder (albeit in much smaller doses) as such classic works like 2001 (1968). Heavenly Creature is a deeply philosophical, poetic film but it’s also, in its own way, a deeply cautionary tale. We may marvel at the notion of In-myung achieving a higher state of being but we must also, at the end, ask ourselves what the notion of that really means for humanity and if we might already be a little too far out on the path to turn back now. An extraordinary film, under any circumstances, and certainly the highlight of Doomsday Book.

Following up the lofty heights of Heavenly Creature struck me as potentially problematic but, fortunately, Yim Pil-sung’s Happy Birthday is (mostly) up to the task. An impossibly strange, esoteric, occasionally frustrating but endlessly fascinating short, Happy Birthday takes our current fascination/obsession with online shopping and pushes it to its illogical extreme. In this case, young Park Min-seo (Jin Ji-hee) is in desperate need of a replacement 8-ball after she accidentally breaks the one belonging to her pool-obsessed father (Lee Seung-joon) and uncle (Song Sae-byeok). She tosses the damaged pool ball out the window (where we watch it roll ominously into a nearby hole) and frantically orders a new one from a suspiciously convenient, cheap and very odd website. Flash forward two years and South Korea is now being threatened with imminent destruction via a rapidly approaching meteor. Conspiracy theories and rumors of the meteor’s origin abound (everything from divine intervention to North Korean fuckery is discussed) but poor Min-seo thinks that the unidentified falling object looks awfully familiar. With the help of her confused but amiable uncle Hwan, Min-seo must do everything she can to prevent the upcoming apocalypse, save her parents and fix her terrible mistake. As Min-seo will find out, the internet can be just as vast and boundless as the farthest reaches of space and the concept of customer service is not a strictly human concept.

Of the three shorts, Happy Birthday is definitely the oddest and also, by contrast, the funniest. Truth be told, there’s some awfully funny stuff in here, whether it be the ridiculous commercials advertising the emergency shelters (the bit where the model gets stuck in the bunker is absolutely priceless), the outrageous TV news segments, which seem to be equal parts Benny Hill and Samuel Beckett or Min-seo bizarre family and their decidedly haphazard emergency shelter. While Happy Birthday is a decidedly lightweight concoction, especially when compared to the cerebral Heavenly Creature, it ends up being a more than suitable way to finish the anthology. For one thing, the short’s humorous tone (more so even than Pil-sung’s opening A Brave New World) helps to provide a nice contrast to the more somber, serious mood of the preceding film. Happy Birthday also manages to combine a post-Apocalyptic, dystopic future with a more hopeful tone (ala Firefly), giving viewers the impression that while everything may be other (relatively speaking), it doesn’t necessarily mean that humanity is over.

From a craft standpoint, Doomsday Book is one massively impressive offering. The shorts all look and sound amazing, particularly the chilly, brittle grace that is Heavenly Creature. Writer-director Yim Pil-sung was also responsible for the impressive, if frustrating, polar-themed horror film Antarctic Journal (2005) but co-writer-director Kim Jee-woon is probably the better know of the two: Jee-woon was responsible for the amazing gut-punch that was I Saw the Devil (2010), still one of the most powerful, horrific films I’ve ever seen, as well as the equally impressive A Tale of Two Sisters (2003), The Good, The Bad, The Weird (2008) and the Arnold Swartzenegger-starring The Last Stand (2013), Jee-woon’s English-language debut. Jee-woon is a true artisan, a craftsman who’s able to fold pain and beauty together into some truly exquisite creations and Heavenly Creature is a consistently fine addition to his canon.

Throughout Doomsday Book, there’s almost a progression, a notion of evolution that leads us through the worst of mankind’s excesses (abuse to animals, the environment, ourselves and others around us) into the best (internal awakening that leads to enlightenment and benevolence, regardless of connection to any belief system or lack thereof) and, finally, to the most frightening step: whatever comes after. As Doomsday Book ends and the characters step off into the dawning of an entirely new kind of day, filled with the knowledge of not only our insignificance within the grander scheme of things but also the comforting notion that it’s okay to be insignificant, there’s a sense of optimism and hope to everything. The characters in Doomsday Book may have completely botched things up but, as long as there are more humans left to try, there will always be another time. This, of course, is the beauty (and the curse) of humanity: we’re nothing if not survivors.

2/16/14: You Can’t Pick Your Friends

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aging, cinema, film reviews, films, Frank Langella, friendship, getting old, grown children, indie comedies, Jake Schreier, James Marsden, Jeremy Sisto, Liv Tyler, Moon, Movies, near future, Peter Sarsgaard, Robot and Frank, robots, sci-fi, Short Circuit, Spike Jonze, Susan Sarandon, technology

What, exactly, is friendship? Most, if not all, of us will have at least one friend: if you’re Lone Wolf McQuaid, you probably only have one; if you’re George Bailey, you’ve got at least a couple dozen. How much give-and-take is required for a relationship to be considered a “friendship?” Can the butler be friends with the lady-of-the-house? Can parents be friends with their children? What about non-human friends? Can humans be friends with animals? We know that children can be friends with aliens, thanks to ET and those darned Reese’s Pieces, and we know that Steve Guttenberg pals around with Number 5 but what about the rest of us: could we ever truly consider a robot to be one of our best buddies?

Robot and Frank, the feature-film debut of Jake Schreier, explores the subject of human-robot friendship in a way that manages to avoid both the easy sentimental notes and silly humor that usually capsizes films like this. The story, as many truly great stories are, is just about as simple as they come. In the near future (think video-phones and hovering cars), aging former cat burglar Frank (Frank Langella) is beginning to exhibit the first signs of dementia and his grown children Hunter (James Marsden) and Madison (Liv Tyler) are worried about him. Not worried enough to pause their fast-paced lives (Hunter is a corporate go-getter whereas Madison is a globe-trotting, socially-aware do-gooder) and actually spend time with him, mind you, but concerned enough to know that he needs a little extra help. Hunter, being the tech-savvy problem-solver that he is, decides to splurge and get his father a robot assistant (voiced by Peter Sarsgaard). At first, old-fashioned Frank views Robot as nothing more than a creepy talking tin-can, an automated nursemaid to help alleviate his absentee children’s’ guilt over his well-being. In time, however, Frank comes to see the amiable Robot as something more: a ready, if not necessarily willing, accomplish in Frank’s newest heist plans. Over time, however, Frank will come to see Robot as something more: a genuine friend.

On the surface, there’s about a million different ways that Robot and Frank could’ve become a chore to sit through. The film could have played up the disparity between Frank and Robot, making this one of those noxious buddy films that always seem to star Zach Galifianakis and some unfortunate “other.” You know the type: Frank keeps being old-fashioned and stubborn…Robot shakes his head and gives one of those “Oh, Frank!” looks…the same watered-down formula we’ve been receiving since the filmmakers decided to rip off The Odd Couple. On the other hand, this could have been played as a real tear-jerker, one of those films where you arrive with a box of Kleenex or you don’t show up at all. After all, Frank isn’t exactly a spring chicken and we definitely get plenty of reminders of his failing mental state throughout the film. It wouldn’t have been too much of a stretch to imagine a film where Frank lies on his dead bed and Robot tenderly holds him, weeping little tears of oil from his eye sockets: this isn’t that film, either.

Instead, Robot and Frank is one of those rare films: an utterly jubilant, funny and smart buddy comedy about aging, family, doing what makes you happy and flipping off the world while doing it. The writing is exceptionally sharp, making the relationship between Frank and Robot feel completely natural and right: there’s nothing that feels gimmicky about their scenes together. Chalk it up to the fact that Langella, 74 years old when the film was released, is one of the more rock-solid actors of his generation and that Sarsgaard manages to inject Robot with just enough pathos and humanity to be relateable.  Robot isn’t the cute ball of energy that was Short Circuit’s Number 5 but he’s also as far from the cold inhumanity of HAL as a robot can get. If anything, Robot (and Sarsgaard’s performance) reminds of Kevin Spacey’s performance as Gerty, the robotic intelligence in Moon: Sarsgaard’s deadpan delivery of such lines as “Frank, that cereal is for children: enjoy this grapefruit” and the amazing “I can’t promise that I’ll allow the actual burglary but I’m glad to see you so enthusiastic” are the wellsprings for much of the film’s funniest moments.

In fact, despite several indicators that Robot and Frank is of the distinct “indie dramedy” family (read: humor so depressing that you’ll chuckle solemnly while throwing yourself from a window), the film is actually very buoyant and quite funny. There’s a fresh, vibrant quality to Frank and Robot’s burgeoning friendship, a quality which permeates nearly every frame of the film. Even when things begin to get heavier in the back half, as Frank must contemplate wiping out Robot’s memory in order to hide his felonious activities from the police (Jeremy Sisto, in a rather odd cameo that feels cut-down from a more substantial role), the film manages to maintain a fleetness that makes it the furthest thing from a “feel-good-about-feeling-bad” film. The film never shies away from the reality of Frank’s situation but it never wallows in future misery, either: we know that this is, ostensibly, Frank’s last hurrah, as it were, and it’s nice that the film doesn’t condescend to him, even if some of the younger nitwit characters do.

From a craft standpoint, Robot and Frank is really quite beautifully made. The cinematography, by Matthew J. Lloyd, is a continual knockout, combining with the evocative “indie-ish” score to create a mood that most resembles Spike Jonze or Gondry-lite. A mentioned previously, the acting is exceptional across the board, with special attention merited by Langella’s outstanding, nuanced performance and Sarsgaard’s stellar voice-work. Susan Sarandon even shows up (is she contractually obligated to appear in every indie film from the past five years) as a kindly librarian who appears to be sweet on Frank: their relationship provides some genuinely nice emotional heft and a truly powerful latter-half revelation that manages to recast several events in a different light.

All in all, Robot and Frank is a truly moving, relatively cliche-free film that features a really neat friendship as its core. While other films might treat the concept of a human-robot friendship as a gimmick, Schreier’s film actually takes the concept seriously. These two don’t become buddies because the script tells them to: Robot and Frank become friends because, in the real world, that’s probably just what would happen. Minus the hover-cars, of course.