Ex Machina
Wednesday 25 April at 7:30 pm
Alex Garland│UK/USA│2015│108 mins│HD│R13 nudity, offensive language, content that may disturb
“Alex Garland’s EX MACHINA is the most prominent [recent example of conceptual science fiction]: another Frankenstein story, about a female robot. For all its SFX sleekness – not least the creation of Ava, with her human face imposed on a transparent metal-and-plastic body – EX MACHINA presents itself primarily as a film of ideas. With its cast of three and single enclosed [strikingly Modernist] location, the film is a chamber drama, structured around a series of interviews between Ava and hero Caleb, designed to establish whether Ava truly is a sentient, self-aware being. In fact, the interviews reveal as much about Caleb’s attitudes to technology, ethics and women as about Ava’s nature; with its game-of-wits psychodrama dimension, EX MACHINA is not only about artificial intelligence but also a musing on contemporary sexual politics and the question of what we are thinking when we project our desires onto others.”- British Film Institute