Ex Machina: Film Analysis Essay

Introduction

Ex Machina is a dark thriller featuring a young programmer Caleb who orbits a charismatic Doctor where he slowly learns that the scientist has a troubled and sickening agenda that is personal with his zeal to learn and create artificial intelligence. This is a rare commercial film that continues to grip on its theme despite the revelations pilling up and screws grow stronger with an increased sense of the inevitable violence and terror (Garland & Alex 16).It has ensured that in every sequence, scene and composition line is perfectly depended on the theme. This means that at the arrival of the open ending, it is less to predict than to avoid the inevitable and the just, as the myths or legends in the Bible.

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The dramatic film takes the film in one location entirely with a minimal cast in it. Caleb, the programmer, is placed at the world's most prominent search engine and he is given an opportunity to visit Nathan for a week. When Caleb arrives at Nathan's house which is a secluded mountain outcast he finds that it's only Nathan and his assistant Kyoko in the modernist dwelling. The film depicts that Caleb is not in the invitation merely to party and hang out however the major purpose of Caleb is to test on Nathan's humanoid android that is imbued with Artificial Intelligence.

Caleb is a nice character at the beginning of the movie, however; it's interesting at how the film writer plays around with characters in regards to the primary characters, protagonists, Nemesis, Mentor or the character archetypes (Garland & Alex 67). In this case, Caleb is the protagonist as this is the way that the filmmaker strategically makes us the viewer's experience the story. As the story flows, we may be positioned to side with Ava's protagonist escape goal. However, the essay looks at Caleb as the victim character.

I'm quite convicted to term Ava, Kyoko and Caleb a lot of tricksters. The goal of Caleb is to escape, and not only he plans to escape alone but to carry Ava with him, and the only person who stands in his way is Nathan who is then positioned in the Nemesis mold. However, it's not Nathan that eventually locks Caleb in prison its Ava. Ava was lying all along to seduce Caleb playing games on him, and the attackers mask seem to fit her pretty well (Biles, Jeremy 78).

Caleb also falls victim from Nathan when he wears the mentor mask specifically around his Artificial Intelligence inventions and mostly his life's perception. Nathan would provide opposition to Caleb while he had the Nemesis mask on him, all this was in service and for the success of the big con task with various twists and turns in the vein of a player and trickster. A trickster is a person who deceives for their gain and selfish wills. Just like Nathan.

The films are geographically intimate and emotional at times it unfolds and suffocates around Nathan's strongholds. It also depicts a modernist bunker which is sealed and alienated from the outside world. The high technology research center is in the mountain outcasts, and most of the rooms are prohibited and restricted to Caleb (Biles, Jeremy 41).Caleb is invited into Nathan's house and is forced to live the miserable and pathetic life of the scientist where there are no other humans but humanoids. This is not only sociological torture but also the mental injustice. Human being s are made to be the social being, and they can only achieve that from interactions with other humans. The fact that Caleb was being used as a research tool without his knowledge is also inappropriate. Therefore Caleb is a victim again in regards to the environmental and physical condition of the research center.

The movie is also a classic nerd fantasy that has four main characters and two of them being female. The subservient role of the female characters in the film makes it crystal clear that the realism test that Caleb is to be involved in is encompassed with original components and the film doesn't exploit the characters in their situation. It also maintains a detachment that is scientific and brings the viewers into the characters minds and thoughts. Caleb is faced with sexual harassment by the female robot that plays games with him in the attempt to seduce him and he again is a victim as the female that he was getting attached to be a robot who was a humanoid.

Conclusion

The victimization of Caleb is seen right from the beginning of the film. However, it's not noted until the film progresses. The dramatic film begins with Caleb's tracks throughout every scene until the viewer is convinced at some instance that the movie is all about him. However, as the story moves from scene to scene, it becomes pretty much about other characters that are more interesting to watch. Sadly, later on, as the film ends, Caleb has locked in the room and assumedly that no changes in the movie he has roughly three days before he dies of dehydration. That's the time limit he has, not starvation and each day that passes beyond that minimizes the chances that Caleb will be discovered. The drastic change of events from the "limelight" to a no-person shows how pathetically Caleb falls victim in the dramatic narrative.

Work Cited

Biles, Jeremy. "Ex Machina. Film. Directed by Alex Garland. Distributed by Universal Studios, 2015." Religious Studies Review 41.4 (2015): 185-185.

Garland, Alex. Ex machina. Faber & Faber, 2015.

Bolton, Andrew. Manus Machina: Fashion in an Age of Technology. Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2016.