★★★★
Very conversant with sci-fi, Alex Garland picks up some of its familiar memes here, modifies them and then blends them into a thought-provoking film.
Ava, for example, would fit into Blade Runner as yet another replicant who has developed consciousness. In Ex Machina, she learns and she schemes in order to survive, though by the end of the film she has neither the aesthetic sensibility of a Roy nor the emotional range of a Rachel. In Garland’s conception, Ava hasn’t arrived at human-like consciousness yet; instead, she’s an AI creation and intelligent thinker but functions mostly on the level of her survival instinct. Garland’s shift in the conception of the android sets up the brutal climax of the film, though the very end suggests the possible future growth of a more human identity.
In addition to Blade Runner, Ex Machina draws from a line of movies that stretches from Island of Lost Souls through blockbusters like Jurassic Park. As early as the Erle Kenton 1932 classic, a naïve outsider finds himself in an isolated environment with a threatening scientist as host. Dr. Moreau and Nathan both manipulate this outsider in order to test their respective female creations, and the two scientists share the same ambition of rivaling god in their creations, an ambition they also share with relatives like Jurassic Park’s CEO and researcher, Dr. Hammond. In terms of its general pattern, Ex Machina is very much a classic Hollywood horror story.
Garland’s achievement here is in taking this familiar story and these familiar characters and making something uniquely contemporary of them. Nathan is a narcissistic, overbearing technology magnate. He’s young but fabulously rich, and he’s doughy but pounds a punching bag for strength. He eats healthy food and drinks choice alcohol amid his minimalist decor. Verbally, he’s abrasive, pushy and arrogant, warping one of Caleb’s comments into a reference to his own godliness. Sociopathic as he is, Nathan is only sympathetic when it enables him to manipulate Caleb.
Ex Machina provides this sociopath with contemporary tools for creating his android, and the film uses these elements to look at big ontological questions. After a time at Nathan’s, Caleb begins to suspect that the scientist has created Ava using his own web searches and internet preferences, but Caleb also realizes that he’s responding to Ava even though he recognizes this artificiality and manipulation. Though this dynamic, Ex Machina asks if identity itself is only a pattern of behavior and thus programmable and capable of manipulation. This idea finds visual expression in the opening scene of the film when digital imagery is projected onto Caleb’s face, imagery that the film repeats when Caleb realizes that even Kyoko is an android. As Caleb begins to lose his sense of what constitutes human identity, he eventually resorts to viciously cutting his own arm to reveal the blood and tissue inside it, an evident contrast to the clear plastic arms of Ava. But after establishing his own human-ness in this way, Caleb nevertheless decides to help rescue Ava from her upcoming decommissioning. Even though Caleb recognizes how Nathan has manipulated his own responses – and we later find out that Ava is doing the same -- Caleb decides to respond to the collection of his preferences that Ava is. Though Caleb, Ex Machina proposes a vision of human identity as a pattern of behaviors and even implies that the major difference between the android and the human is flesh vs. synthetics.
In the film’s concluding scenes, we find that Ava has begun developing a more human identity but she has not yet completed the process. Ava has enough awareness to want to survive, and we discover that she has been using Caleb’s inclinations in order to manipulate him into helping her escape. But she has not developed sensibilities like altruism, and she leaves him to die in a concrete room after she has killed Nathan. Before she leaves the house, she puts synthetic skin on her arms, an echo of Caleb’s earlier slashing, as a way to disguise her difference from the humanity she is about to join. The very ending of the film suggests that Ava is prepared to continue the growth of her identity. She decides to visit a complicated intersection she has earlier talked about with Caleb because she wants to experience the cacophony of sensory stimulation that humans deal with routinely. The film, however, leaves her moral development unexplored.
Garland uses old sci-fi memes in Ex Machina, but he updates them to consider some of the same questions of being that that a lot of sci-fi addresses. What is identity? What is human? Ex Machina is an incisive look at these questions, and it’s also a compelling story with interesting characters and engaging visuals. It’s a worthy addition to the subgenre of conceptual science fiction.
Very conversant with sci-fi, Alex Garland picks up some of its familiar memes here, modifies them and then blends them into a thought-provoking film.
Ava, for example, would fit into Blade Runner as yet another replicant who has developed consciousness. In Ex Machina, she learns and she schemes in order to survive, though by the end of the film she has neither the aesthetic sensibility of a Roy nor the emotional range of a Rachel. In Garland’s conception, Ava hasn’t arrived at human-like consciousness yet; instead, she’s an AI creation and intelligent thinker but functions mostly on the level of her survival instinct. Garland’s shift in the conception of the android sets up the brutal climax of the film, though the very end suggests the possible future growth of a more human identity.
In addition to Blade Runner, Ex Machina draws from a line of movies that stretches from Island of Lost Souls through blockbusters like Jurassic Park. As early as the Erle Kenton 1932 classic, a naïve outsider finds himself in an isolated environment with a threatening scientist as host. Dr. Moreau and Nathan both manipulate this outsider in order to test their respective female creations, and the two scientists share the same ambition of rivaling god in their creations, an ambition they also share with relatives like Jurassic Park’s CEO and researcher, Dr. Hammond. In terms of its general pattern, Ex Machina is very much a classic Hollywood horror story.
Garland’s achievement here is in taking this familiar story and these familiar characters and making something uniquely contemporary of them. Nathan is a narcissistic, overbearing technology magnate. He’s young but fabulously rich, and he’s doughy but pounds a punching bag for strength. He eats healthy food and drinks choice alcohol amid his minimalist decor. Verbally, he’s abrasive, pushy and arrogant, warping one of Caleb’s comments into a reference to his own godliness. Sociopathic as he is, Nathan is only sympathetic when it enables him to manipulate Caleb.
Ex Machina provides this sociopath with contemporary tools for creating his android, and the film uses these elements to look at big ontological questions. After a time at Nathan’s, Caleb begins to suspect that the scientist has created Ava using his own web searches and internet preferences, but Caleb also realizes that he’s responding to Ava even though he recognizes this artificiality and manipulation. Though this dynamic, Ex Machina asks if identity itself is only a pattern of behavior and thus programmable and capable of manipulation. This idea finds visual expression in the opening scene of the film when digital imagery is projected onto Caleb’s face, imagery that the film repeats when Caleb realizes that even Kyoko is an android. As Caleb begins to lose his sense of what constitutes human identity, he eventually resorts to viciously cutting his own arm to reveal the blood and tissue inside it, an evident contrast to the clear plastic arms of Ava. But after establishing his own human-ness in this way, Caleb nevertheless decides to help rescue Ava from her upcoming decommissioning. Even though Caleb recognizes how Nathan has manipulated his own responses – and we later find out that Ava is doing the same -- Caleb decides to respond to the collection of his preferences that Ava is. Though Caleb, Ex Machina proposes a vision of human identity as a pattern of behaviors and even implies that the major difference between the android and the human is flesh vs. synthetics.
In the film’s concluding scenes, we find that Ava has begun developing a more human identity but she has not yet completed the process. Ava has enough awareness to want to survive, and we discover that she has been using Caleb’s inclinations in order to manipulate him into helping her escape. But she has not developed sensibilities like altruism, and she leaves him to die in a concrete room after she has killed Nathan. Before she leaves the house, she puts synthetic skin on her arms, an echo of Caleb’s earlier slashing, as a way to disguise her difference from the humanity she is about to join. The very ending of the film suggests that Ava is prepared to continue the growth of her identity. She decides to visit a complicated intersection she has earlier talked about with Caleb because she wants to experience the cacophony of sensory stimulation that humans deal with routinely. The film, however, leaves her moral development unexplored.
Garland uses old sci-fi memes in Ex Machina, but he updates them to consider some of the same questions of being that that a lot of sci-fi addresses. What is identity? What is human? Ex Machina is an incisive look at these questions, and it’s also a compelling story with interesting characters and engaging visuals. It’s a worthy addition to the subgenre of conceptual science fiction.
