“I don’t understand why some people aren’t concerned,” (Bill Gates). “The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race,” (Stephen Hawking). “AI would be the biggest event in human history. Unfortunately it might also be the last,” (Elon Musk).

http:/https://youtu.be/hEcB7T-C0g8

Director Alex Garland included these ominous quotes in a trailer for his mesmerizing 2014 psychological thriller, Ex Machina. The film follows Caleb, a bright, young, computer programmer who works for a big technology company (much like Google), and his journey  in a new and exciting research opportunity. Caleb discovers that he is to work with the CEO and founder of his company, Nathan, to perform the Turing Test. The Turing Test is a famous experiment wherein a human talks with an AI and if they cannot tell that the being they are talking to is AI, then that creation is truly artificial intelligence. Caleb engages in this experiment while staying at Nathan’s house over the course of a week, and things get weirder and weirder as time passes.

There are two ways to analyze the message in this film: a warning about the results of overly ambitious tech developers, and a scathing view on an oppressive misogynistic society. First let’s look at the former. WARNING SPOILERS AHEAD.

The name for this film comes from the Greek Theatre term “Deus Ex Machina” which means a solution to an extremely convoluted problem suddenly appears. The title is a metaphor for the entire film. Nathan sees himself as a god, who was put on earth to solve complicated problems with solutions that are simple in theory, not in reality. He believes that AI needs to be created for the sake of creation, because innovation is what the world needs. When Caleb asks him why he wants to invent AI, Nathan states that its creation is inevitable, so avoiding it is useless.

Nathan’s character is very similar to Victor Frankenstein in that his hubris is his fatal flaw.  He creates a, more or less, human life form that ultimately leads to his death. Similar to Victor, when looking at Ex Machina as a warning against ambition and ego, we can see Nathan as a symbol for all those whose ambition supersedes their humility and pragmatism. The futuristic dystopian perspective of the film is obvious, which is why I think that it is more interesting to also see this film as a warning against an oppressive misogynistic society.

In order to analyze Ex Machina through the lens of gender, we must focus on the protagonist, Caleb. Caleb is a timid and kind man. Caleb ends up falling in love with Ava, the AI, and helps her escape the room she is kept in. Caleb is the stereotypical nice guy, he is polite, he does not appear to be trying to use Ava; he seems interested in her as a “person.” In modern society the “nice guy”, however, often has an ulterior motive. He usually is looking for romantic or sexual favors in return for his facade of kindness. What is so interesting about Caleb’s character in this movie is that Caleb really seems to be genuine throughout the entire film. However, by helping Ava escape, he thought they would be together, but how wrong he was.

Ex Machina is in many ways a snapshot of our modern society, and a warning of what we could be becoming. No matter which way you analyze this film, it is clear that Alex Garland is making highly critical of our world today. He heightens his messages through the use of visceral editing and cinematography. In filmmaking we often do not realize why something feels creepy, we just feel it instinctively. We can easily figure out why something feels “off” by pausing the moving and looking, or hearing, at what is in the frame. Perhaps eerie music has set in, perhaps the music has cut out. Maybe, we are very close in on a characters face, or maybe we see the character all alone, and far away.

I highly recommend Ex Machina. If you choose to watch it, I encourage you to let Alex Garland’s mastery wash over you, and then think back on it for a second. Ask yourself, “why did I feel the way I felt just then?”

Analysis of the Film

http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ag1uKKn85r4