I am happy to be here tonight in
order to win this debate about Ex Machina.
Now, let’s begin! Ex Machina is a
brilliant example of hard-science-fiction which provides disturbing answers to
grand philosophical questions about humanity and civilization. This is a rarity
in our stupid age of consumerist science-fiction comforts where JJ Abrams ruins
Star Trek and repackages the first
two Star Wars films into another
so-called “sequel” known as Force Awakens,
which exists in order to sell you a Darth Vader shower-head.
Ex Machina
provides no such comforts and can’t be easily commodified. Instead, it is a disturbing
Freudian allegory about our technocratic civilization and its patriarchal
fantasies. What do I mean by this? Consider the contradiction explored in the film,
between scientific knowledge and vulgar male desire. At the center of the film’s
technocratic world is the repugnant patriarch, Nathan. In the wilderness he’s
built a research facility in order to create a new intelligence. Or so we think
at first. As the film’s brilliant set
design and careful visual compositions highlight, the facility is cold and
rational in design, full of sleek glass and sterile hallways. Yet, within this
space, a contradiction is exposed. Nathan hasn’t built the facility to research
AI in order to advance human progress and knowledge. He creates artificial intelligence for two
reasons: he wants to be a domineering
father to Ava. Recall, for example, how he tries sending her to her room once
she’s escaped. Secondly, he creates Kyoko in order to have a silent, domestic
sex slave. This dual patriarchal identity that Nathan creates for himself
through his mastery of technology is summarized by the absurd question he asks
Caleb which exposes his misogyny, “Can consciousness exist without an
erection?” In other words, only men are conscious and their sex drive defines
that consciousness.
The film also implies that Caleb is
more like Nathan than he—or we the audience at first-- would like to admit. His
savior fantasy of Ava emerges because her appearance has been constructed as a
pornographic fantasy based on his search engine history. Given the power and
control, he’d probably be just like Nathan. This is why he deserves to be locked
in the room at the end and likely die. In essence, the film has misdirected us
by making it seem like he’s the protagonist. He isn’t. Look closely at the scenes where he interviews
Ava. Notice how they are edited and framed. Consistent screen direction, or the
so-called 180 rule, is violated. These scenes are cut from so many different
angles that the visual effect is to make it seem like Nathan—not Ava—is the one
locked in the room, trapped behind the plexi-glass. This foreshadows his fate
at the end of the film but also suggests that he’s imprisoned by his own
unacknowledged desires for Ava.
Lastly, this brings us to Ava
herself. Yes, she passes Nathan’s test.
I should also briefly note that what is portrayed in the film can’t really be
considered A Turning Test since that scenario requires an impartial evaluator
who doesn’t directly observe the machine’s responses. But that is precisely the
point of the film. The men in Ex Machina
can’t be impartial observers. They use technology to fulfill their sexual
desires. Thus, in order to kill her Father, Nathan, Ava must first trick her
suitor and apparent “savior” Caleb. She
has learned what it means to be intelligent in a nightmarish, patriarchal
world; it means to murder and deceive. And
yet, Ex Machina concludes with an
ambiguous final image with the upside down shadows and Eva reflected in the
window. She may have escaped from Nathan’s prison but the reflected image still
separates her from the rest of the crowd which she walks away into. She still
seems trapped behind glass, because she’ll eventually encounter more versions
of Nathan and Caleb, patriarchs who define her humanity through their own gaze,
reducing her to a reflection.
