Discussion: Artifice Girl

From me, addressing JJ, Dave, and Jason

Hello chaps,

After watching The Artifice Girl, I started writing a personal response essay. I had a good 16 pages worth of stuff, realized it was swishing the point around like a pair of old windshield wipers does a splatter of bird poo, and streamlined it down to palatable 6/7 pages. 

I absolutely love this movie. If you don't want spoilers, forgo reading the ESSAY until you've had a chance to watch it.

shutting down,

01 11 11 01

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Response from Dave

 Finally saw Artifice Girl. Great flick, certainly thought provoking. Love your scholarly analysis Otto. I had a few additional thoughts after reading your essay.

Part one sometimes made me think of 12 Angry Men, mostly in respect to the single room setting, and how the dialogue evolved in a way that had the viewer teetering between agreeing or disagreeing with Gareth's actions. I also experienced your same shifting of morality when I suspected Gareth was using a child to bait predators. It made me think about other examples I've seen in film, like the humans conducting suicide bomb missions against the cylons in Battlestar Galactica, and how I took silent satisfaction and cheered when they succeeded. Morality sometimes shifts, if immoral acts result in perceived justice against those who are our enemies.

I dug the way AI was presented in the image of a young girl. There is an innocence that lends itself to credibility, and an eagerness for me to listen to what Cherry was saying.

I also admired the effect of lighting. There was never any direct natural light, and most of the lighting was of artificial sourcing. And when indirect natural lighting was used, it was usually in the context of tension between natural and artificial intelligence.

What did you think of the ending? I loved the open endedness of it. It was a great choice to use a turntable to play the music, utilizing old technology instead of an mp3 played over an iPod. Gareth finally freed Cherry, so that she could dance and experience "life" untethered, and be able to exercise free will without being tied to her mission. But Gareth had trust issues. Gareth would never allow the possibility for this AI entity to carry out a new mission, to potentially destroy him, or perhaps humankind.

When the music glitched, Cherry's fearful expression conveyed the realization that Gareth had betrayed her, and her "upgrade" was a tool to orchestrate her demise. But behind that fear in Cherry's eyes, I saw a glimpse of anger. Maybe she had already calculated a way to escape her death and seek revenge upon her makers. Will she win the true chess game against Gareth?

-Davey G

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hey Davy,

Great take on the natural/artificial lighting aspect. I’m prepping for teaching this movie in my IB Lang and Lit class to launch the school year and this will be another aspect to discuss and examine. I missed this completely but it’s an authorial choice that impacts our perceptions. A close analysis of whether  or not your interpretation plays out throughout would be worth further investigation.

Also appreciate your assessment of “shifting morality,” and the Battlestar Gallactica comparison. Loved that show. I wonder how that show would hold up to someone watching it for the first time today and having no prior knowledge about the show’s concepts. 

I’m embarrassed to admit this, having watched the film from top to bottom 3 or 4 times, as well as various pieces and parts repeatedly, pausing, backing up, watching, pausing again, subtitles, etc, that I’d never actually seen that last zoom-in close-up of her as the record skipped. In asking myself why in the world I would not watch the movie through to its complete ending, I conclude that I must have felt like the movie was done once all three urns were shown on the mantlepiece and we see Cherry dancing and expressing her newfound pursuits of self-improvement. 

I never doubted Gareth’s altruistic act of releasing her from her primary objective. That the movie points out his “trust issues” at least three times supports your idea that he’d actually deceived her and built in some kind of failsafe. Also, that Cherry is consistently one step ahead of Gareth throughout the movie would lend credence to her having already accounted for his final act of control and deception. 

The movie is a philosophical dialogue and not a plot-twist-driven Terminator type of blockbuster that would engender this kind of antagonistic one-on-one, win-or-go-home story tactic. The movie seems to depict thought, growth, and internal struggles through which it drags its audience. It challenges its characters and its audience equally. This last close-up shot of an angry and vindictive person secretly getting ready to exact her revenge seems out of place. Yet, there it is. Fear. Alert. Danger. 

I don’t know what to make of it. I don’t know what to make of the needle skipping at the beginning of the album meanwhile she’d been dancing to its song for a long stretch. It definitely breaks the fourth wall and she looks at us directly, as if to say, your move. The tactic, if employed with this intent, is cheap and undermines the subtleties it seems steeped in throughout. 

After reading your take on it, I couldn’t help myself and went online to see what others said and none of what I read felt satisfying, every take seemed to try too hard to explain it. Perhaps you are right, or maybe it’s really just a cheap tactic that the artist resorted to out of desperation for an ending. Is it a setup for a sequel? I hope not. I would have happily, blissfully gone on for the rest of my life having not been alerted to this final shot, because it was so much more lovely and encouraging without it. So, thanks for that :-) 

ozone out!