Alex Garland was born in London, England in 1970. In 1996, he wrote the first novel "Beach", which was made into a movie in 2000. He found Xiao Li who had just finished filming "Titanic" as the protagonist. Including the subsequent "Don't Let Me Go", Garland has been working as a screenwriter for a long time. When it comes to "Don't Let Me Go", it must be ambitious. It may be that the established tone of Kazuo Ishiguro's novel is too charming. Although the movie is not perfect, it is impressive. Regardless of whether the Carey Mulligan and Keira Knightley packages are for everyone, it is fascinating to benefit from the worldview setting, the Japanese pathetic tune, and the breath of "how charming death is". (Oh, Carey Mulligan is unreasonable in "Drunk Country Folk Songs"! It also takes Oscar Isaac.)
Some movies are like this, there are always some places you can watch again somehow. This is an inevitable characteristic of a good movie, even if the audience for each type of movie is different.
Back to "Mechanical Ji". In 2015, Garland made his official debut with "Mechanic Ji" as the director. Although there are too many similarities with "She", overall I still prefer "Mechanical Ji". "She" relies too much on Scarlett, or the voice of OS Samantha, which makes me feel that I am watching Joaquin Phoenix's monologue, for like, 126 mins. Isn't it exciting? No, just one of the enjoyable parts of watching a movie is the interaction between people, any interaction. The various reactions of people during interaction are not the result of placing an actor in front of the mirror and then adjusting the alarm clock and waiting to receive the goods. You will never know what the effect will be when two right people are put together. This is a term that is said to be bad but extremely difficult to shake-chemistry. For me, "She" is missing this, while "Mechanical Ji" has it, and it is rich.
Domhnall Gleeson, who plays Caleb, has seen About Time played by him and Rachel McAdams before. He is super calling, super charming and super favorite. Gleeson is very suitable to play this thin guy who is incarnation of justice and love, so when Ava and Caleb are talking back and forth, it feels right. Caleb and Ava have been chatting in the glass house through a piece of glass. Caleb went from being curious, excited, purposeful, and logically oriented, to becoming obsessed with Ava and trying to help her escape from Nathan's control, especially when Ava asked Caleb if she was attracted to her. At that time, the whole film is the favorite. The plot flows in an orderly manner, and the audience has plenty of room to immerse and understand the two characters. Just like the glass house, the audience is also another Nathan (Played by Oscar Isaac), another "God", observing the whole time, thinking about them-more Ava-what is the purpose behind all the actions . The structure of this character triangle is very pleasing. It can organize tension and is full of unknowns. Until the last moment, you will not get the answer you want, or you will never come.
Alicia Vikander, who plays Ava, is really flying this year. In addition to "Mechanic Ji", he also played the wife Gerda in "The Danish Girl", all of whom have gained a super reputation. With the perfect sound effects in "Mechanic Ji", the overall performance machinery seems to have primitive emotions, but it is fleeting. It is really like seeing a part of Hal in "2001 A Space Odyssey", which is very good. I look forward to her future works very much.
As a sci-fi work, I really like Garland's setting of the environment in a vast expanse of nature. Nature and geometry, humans and machinery, innate and acquired, are too symmetrical and beautiful, too beautiful. Even if you don’t like the movie itself, it’s hard not to love this “housing installation” with a strong sense of design—a mechanical prison and hell that integrates nature and is full of life. When the story unfolds in this environment, time is static, so the arrangements such as session separation and dialogue appear to be very ritual. We passively entered the director's rhythm flow, like an expired CPU, processing the part that was required to be processed, and did not dare to go to the other. In this way, the ending can be quiet enough and shocking enough.
The within reach of the future is always aspirational and frightening. Discussing the existence of human nature in artificial intelligence seems to be an eternal moral black hole, swallowing all possibilities, but the result is unknown. But in the end, it is the collection of these uncertainties that can be so exciting. A great science fiction movie, recommended.
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