Ex Machina group 9

A Possible Tomorrow in Garland's EX MACHINA 

by Quishia San Andres, Samuel Tremblay and Carla Villareal Sepulveda

From IMDb:

Ex Machina  (2015)

Written and directed by: Alex Garland 

Running Time: 108 minutes

Lead actors: Domhnall Gleeson, Oscar Isaac, Alicia Vikander, Sonoya Mizuno

Plot:

Caleb works for the biggest internet company in the world: Blue Book. One day, Caleb receives an email saying he won a chance to spend a week in a mountain house belonging to Nathan, the founder of Blue Book. Caleb learns upon his arrival at Nathan's that his purpose of visit is to conduct a test on a robot named Ava to determine if she truly feels emotions and if she is capable of thinking for herself. To do this, Caleb sets up sessions with her everyday to conversewith her, and to ask herself questions.

As Ava and Caleb grow closer to each other, Caleb begins to feel admiration and even love towards Ava. However, he is hesitant about this as he is uncertain if her feelings for him are genuine, or if she is just programmed to appear to have feelings. Ava begins to tell Caleb secrets, which make him doubt everything he believed of himself, of the world, of Nathan.

The director of the movie uses diverse cinematic techniques that each play an important role in the film:

1)   lighting:

• There is low- key lighting at the scene where Ava is introduced to Caleb. Thanks to this effect, there were a lot of shadows and contrasts between the light and dark allowing the audience to see how Ava was half like a “human” and half robot-like. 

• The filmmaker decides to use high-key lighting once Ava manages to get out of her room, differentiating her room from the rest of the house. This lightning also serves to help highlight to the audience her actions and facial expressions upon her given opportunity to freedom; making it easier for the audience to analyze her persona.

2)     props important and significant props

• Dresses were also an important prop in the movie as their purpose was to reveal Ava's

  femininity. For example, in one of the sessions where she confessed to Caleb, she wore a dress to impress him and make him realize that it was okay to also have feelings for her, as she is not just a simple robot. She also wore a white dress at the end of the movie before she got on the helicopter to join the society outside the mountains. This white dress symbolizes her innocence and purity which are qualities that stereotypically define women. However, these traits seem to contradict her act of murdering of Nathan and imprisoning Caleb.

• Beers and alcohol played a significant role in the movie: drinking became the way for Nathan and Caleb to get to know each other. Additionally, it gave Caleb the chance to steal Nathan’s key card while he was drunk in order to find out the truth about him and his AIs, and plan Ava’s escape. Alcohol then served in this film as Nathan's demise and as the path to the truth

3)   framing

• At the first meeting of Nathan and Caleb upon Caleb’s arrival, each of them is shot from the waist up (medium shot). This helps the director bring the awkward atmosphere of their first conversation to the audience. The medium shot allows the audience to see the difference between Nathan and Caleb which makes the scene awkward: Caleb can be seen confused as he talks and unable to move his upper body and make an eye contact with his boss, while Nathan seems to be more laid back as he drinks his water while staring at Caleb.
• The director of the movie uses high-angle shot when Nathan was looking for his key card while drunk, and Caleb arrives in the scene to give it back. This framing shows how unpowerful Nathan felt in the situation, as he was not able to do or access anything without his card. This was one of the only few scenes where the director uses this type of camera angle, as, throughout the movie, Nathan was the one dominates the place. This shot then shows Nathan's vulnerability when he is drunk.

4)   editing

•  The director of the movie uses a long take as Caleb enters his boss’ house and tours it. This editing’s purpose is to build up suspense in the scene as Caleb explores an unfamiliar, unknown environment in a slow manner. The audience is then finding out the mystery of this place at the same time as Caleb, and both do not know what to look out for.
•  During one of Caleb’s session with Ava, the scene was cut immediately after it builds up to the climax where Ava frankly tells him about how she feels, and asks him, “Do you want to be with me?”. This sudden cut after the question leaves the audience to wonder what he answered. It leaves us in the dark if he truly has feelings for her, and if he was willing to admit it to himself at that point.

5.)  sound

•  Every time Ava moves a part of her body, there is a digital, mechanical sound, which is an internal diegetic sound as it heard through Caleb’s character during their sessions. This is to highlight that her movement is not as fluid as a real person’s to emphasize the fact that she is a robot, though her face is very similar to a human’s.
• At the end of the movie, when Ava successfully escapes the basement and gets to the main lobby of the house, there is a similar sound of piano playing from the beginning of the movie when Caleb first arrived at the place. This is a diegetic sound, and, at the end scene, this serves to contrast the intensity of the confrontation and killing that just happened in the scene before. It was really calm as if nothing had happened at the level below. The music plays in the beginning and in the end to represents the beginning of a character's new adventure by exploring a new, unfamiliar place.

The film explores three main themes:

• “Human perceptions of AI”. This theme is explored throughout the film, as it is centered between the interactions and evolution between Caleb and Ava. Moreover, the theme gets explored more deeply: the psychology of AI is analyzed through the different ways that the humans in the film perceive and respond to AI. On one hand, the theme is echoed through the unraveling of Oscar Isaac’s character, Nathan. He is first viewed by both the audience and Caleb as this cool and brilliant CEO who just wants to advance and explore the world of AI. However, as the movie continues, we begin to see just how Nathan truly feels towards AI. We see that he has been mistreating all previous versions to the point of having to “kill each previous version”. Nathan’s view is more practical, he merely sees the advancement of AI as a direct road to the advancement of technology and his company. Caleb, on the other hand, has a more human view of Ava, during each of their sessions, he increasingly begins to feel like he is having a human interaction rather than a robot test. He eventually begins to view Ava as equal to human life, trying to free her from Nathan’s lab. Both of these views create a duality of perception in the way humans view AI, and how they will treat them in consequence.
  
  

• “Human vs Machine”. This theme is portrayed through images of duality between the human characters and the robot characters. The movie dives into what differs between humans and robots, but also the similarities they share. The main technique used to demonstrate this is the imagery of opposition. Many times during the film, shots of Caleb and Nathan facing the AI’s are used to illustrate the duality that is present. A quite clear example of this comes during the Ava sessions, Caleb and Ava are always placed to be face-to-face. Even the shape of the room is built in such a way to create a direct physical opposition between Caleb and Ava. Additionally, during Nathan's death, the characters are blocked to all be face-to-face or back-to-back to each other. At one point, Nathan was even sandwiched between Kyoko and Ava. The opposition at this moment being personified by both women, psychologically, and physically. Another key imagery of this theme is that of the pane of glass that is always separating Ava and Caleb during their sessions. It creates an unclear separation, as we are able to see Ava clearly while acknowledging that she is on the other side of a barrier.
  
  

• A prevalent theme when it comes to today’s society is that of oppression. This is explored through the double oppression of both women and robots in the film. The theme is used to create a reflexion from the movie onto our society. It is not a coincidence that every AI robot we see in this movie is a woman, a rather traditionally good looking woman at that. As previously mentioned, the robots in the movie are treated similarly as women are still often treated: mere objects. For example, Kyoko has essentially been Nathan’s sex robot for the longest time, all while treating her as his property. Similarly, we see how Nathan has gone through many different models of AI, each one being stuffed in a closet and forgotten about when they are finished with. This oppression of the robots reflects the oppression of women, so often being used or abused and then forgotten, left behind just like the previous robots have been. The theme is also echoed through a flipping of the roles, the oppressed becoming the oppressors by the end of the film. Although Kyoko does die, both her and Ava end up flipping the script on Caleb and Nathan, finally taking control of their own lives and leaving both men behind as their previous versions have been.
  
  

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Review:

 Given that our technology is rapidly advancing, we highly recommend watching this movie, since it might be a representation of how the robots will be in a few years. It's really interesting to see what might be the behavior of self-aware robots within a society. Furthermore, the film helps the viewers understand various of aspects concerning the topic of robots. For instance, it places the AI in an interesting position in the uncanny valley: the audience can see Ava's mechanical body, proving that she is but a robot, but she can be easily confused as a real person due to her thoughful actions and her way of talking. It also touches a lot on sentience, consciousness, which makes the audience wonder if a self-aware robot can actually be comparable a human being. The movie is Oscar-nominated (Dove 2016) for a reason: each character portrayal is great, and it represents how the society may view self-aware robots in the future through Nathan and Caleb's characters. Additionally, the combination of CGI and practical effects helps create a true to life atmosphere for the movie. Consequently, the viewers may often forget that they are watching a merely animated robot body with a woman’s face, as the effects and the actor, Alicia Vikander, compliment each other.

Hence, this movie is a must-watch, as it explores the world of robotics in a way that a lot of other futuristic movies fail to do: it is believable although not realistic. The entire story arc and the evolution of the relationship between Ava, Caleb, and Nathan are at the core of this. Each character has a different view on what AI inherently is, and how these robots should be treated. These differences in thoughts and personality create a duality in the movie, because they allow the audiene to learn the AI’s view of themselves versus the human view of AI.

Not only is it a good movie, but it also makes interesting connections to our course:

1. Subjectivity is formed through one’s political, social and cultural relations. Nathan emphasizes that being gendered does not just come from within, but also from people who influence us: “I programmed her to be heterosexual, just like you were programmed to be heterosexual […] by nature, or nurture, or both”. Ava perceives this subjectification as an advantage that she can use to manipulate Caleb to help her escape. However, due to this femininity, she also experiences a very limited agency, for Nathan takes an active role as a dominant male figure.
2.  Intrinsic Moral Value is whether we deem a robot worthy of the basic moral considerations we naturally grant other people. Caleb demonstrates this when he plans Ava’s escape from the house as he feels that it is unfair that she is isolated in a room. He felt particularly guilty of this injustice when Ava finds out about his purpose in the experiment and asks him, “Do you have people who test you and might switch you off? […] Then why do I?”. Nathan, however, displays the opposite of Caleb's thoughts. This is evident through the way he treats the robots as mere experiments and tests -- even having the failed ones thrown away and kept in a closet. There is a total lack of intrinsic moral value that is inherent in Nathan when he refers to his robots as "it", whereas Caleb calls them by their names.
3.  Self-aware Self. This self can represent itself. It is the subject of experience but can also be the object of its experience. It knows it exists and can represent its own consciousness. Ava had the ability of being able to perceive or being aware of her environment. She knows that Nathan is lying to Caleb, and presents her consciousness to Caleb by telling him this fact. She is also aware that she may be turned off if she fails the Turing Test, and even admits this fear to Caleb.

Here are other sites you could check out to learn more about this movie!

https://www.theguardian.com/science/the-lay-scientist/2016/jan/26/artificial-intelligence-gods-egos-and-ex-machina

This site talks about the relationship between artificial intelligence, God and the ego. The article relates God with Artificial Intelligence and links the story of Ava with Eve, assuming that God is Nathan in his green state being sort of the Garden of Eden. The site studies the ego of Nathan. According to the link, Nathan represents the male ego-driven culture of the technological world. He represents the masculine culture driven by the ego of the technological world and what happens when an ego faces the reality of its own extinction. The article ends by mentioning that we have become somewhat obsessed with the idea that through artificial intelligence we can create, or even become a God.

https://www.popularmechanics.com/culture/movies/a25749315/ex-machina-double-take-data-harvesting/

This site talks about the possible dangers of artificial intelligence. It mentions that even from the beginning of the movie, we can see that Caleb was a victim of information theft and data harvesting which greatly contributed to his lottery "win". As artificial intelligence possesses a highly advanced, complex technology, this article then highlights how easy it can be for these robots to invade people’s privacy just by storing their personal data.

Questions:

• Do you think that Nathan brought his death upon himself as he already knew that Ava was just manipulating Caleb to help her escape?
• In the real world, can artificial intelligence ever outsmart its creators (humans)?
• In the near future, once we are able to create human-like, conscient robots, do you think that we can ever consider and refer to them as “human beings”?

References

“Ex Machina.” IMDb, IMDb.com, 21 Jan. 2015, www.imdb.com/title/tt0470752/

Dove, S. “Ex Machina Gets 2 Oscar Nominations Including Original Screenplay.” The Oscars 2019. January 14, 2016. https://oscar.go.com/news/nominations/ex-machina-gets-2-oscar-nominations-including-original-screenplay