The WHF Film Club

[expat_mike]

Hope you don't mind me posting this but I do read these pages occasionally and I know director Michael Haneke's films are a favourite with you all.

Please feel free to post any alerts about films, programs, etc that you think may be of interest to us.

Michael Haneke's films have not proved my favourites yet, but I am in a minority of 1 in the club about this, however everyone else is very keen on him as a director.

 

[BIGBERNARDBRESSLAW]

Hope you don't mind me posting this but I do read these pages occasionally and I know director Michael Haneke's films are a favourite with you all.

I have the blu ray already, but thanks for letting us know. Hope you enjoy it if you watch it.

 

[BIGBERNARDBRESSLAW]

Hope you don't mind me posting this but I do read these pages occasionally and I know director Michael Haneke's films are a favourite with you all.

Please feel free to post any alerts about films, programs, etc that you think may be of interest to us.

Michael Haneke's films have not proved my favourites yet, but I am in a minority of 1 in the club about this, however everyone else is very keen on him as a director.

The Piano Teacher. *biggrin*

 

[BIGBERNARDBRESSLAW]

Richard

Any views/opinions on 'Ex Machina'?

 

[BIGBERNARDBRESSLAW]

Just finished watching another Scandinavian black comedy.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2113681/?ref_=fn_al_tt_6

Good fun.

 

[Frank Harvey]

Michael Haneke's films have not proved my favourites yet, but I am in a minority of 1 in the club about this, however everyone else is very keen on him as a director.

I can't really say he's a favourite of mine either, mainly because as far as I know, I've only seen his english language version of Funny Games, which can be added to a list of films that I never need to watch again. Ever.

 

[strapped for cash]

I've only seen his english language version of Funny Games, which can be added to a list of films that I never need to watch again. Ever.

Because?

 

[Frank Harvey]

I just saw it as dull and pointless. I'm not necessarily keen on English language remakes anyway, as very few actually add to what the original was all about (like that awful film The Strangers, copying Ils), although I didn't know it was a remake at the time that I watched it. I'd happily watch the original, knowing it is bound to be better than the remake.

 

[strapped for cash]

I just saw it as dull and pointless. I'm not necessarily keen on English language remakes anyway, as very few actually add to what the original was all about (like that awful film The Strangers, copying Ils), although I didn't know it was a remake at the time that I watched it. I'd happily watch the original, knowing it is bound to be better than the remake.

Funny Games US is a shot-for-shot remake of a German language film, written and directed by the same filmmaker. On the surface little changes. So why remake the film at all?

I'd argue that it's not Gus Van Sant's Psycho, or a Hollywood remake, with subtext crashing through the surface.

Funny Games US is something different. It's a facsimile of the 1997 "original," but the national and production contexts have changed, with global stars in Naomi Watts and Tim Roth cast as leads (if they're really the leads; Michael Pitt's omnipotent narrator effectively speaks for Haneke).

Nevertheless, if little changes on the surface, the "why?" question is left curiously hanging.

I can't speak for filmmaker intentions, but the following observations and questions seem relevant:

Haneke often asks the spectator to reflect on their position, while suggesting they're complicit with on-screen violence. This was true of Haneke's first feature, Benny's Video. It's true of Funny Games. Hidden plays with questions of voyeurism and complicity (the rewinding of the videotape).

Hollywood doesn't have a monopoly on screen violence, but gratuitous violence features heavily in Hollywood productions (or at least that's the perception). Funny Games also deconstructs "classical" approaches to narrative that define Hollywood filmmaking and predominante elsewhere.

In other words, Haneke aims squarely (if not exclusively) at Hollywood filmmaking conventions, most explicitly in Funny Games. If Hollywood filmmakers and audiences are your primary targets, doesn't it make sense to critique that system from within; to address the audience you seek to persuade?

Might a lack of subtitles, along with Hollywood branding and distribution, help or encourage people to view the film? If so, doesn't this help disseminate any message?

Does placing recognisable stars in the middle of an anti-Hollywood movie change our peception of that film?

Finally, since Haneke frequently plays jokes on his audience, is Funny Games US his biggest joke of all? Is he lamenting a lack of creativity in an industry where endlessly recycling concepts is standard commercial practice?

Rather than being a pointless remake, I'd argue that Funny Games US posits various questions for audiences to reflect on. Whether people like the film (and they're certainly not meant to enjoy it) is a different question altogether.

 

[richardw42]

Sorry, forgot to post re. Ex Mchina.

Whilst I'd seen it quite recently I still found the last 30-40 genuinely exciting stuff.

Pits funny, on the first watch I was firmly in the Ava & Caleb camp but this time I felt much more sympathetic with Nathan. He was obviously a genius and had isolated himself. He was protective of his tech and constantly seeking to improve, no different from any other inventor. If Ava had looked and sounded like Metal Mickey would we have a problem.

Also, at what point did Ava decide Caleb was the one to free her, even before he arrived ? When she showed some panic when she told Caleb that she didn't think he'd be back. Was this necessarily true. She could remotely shut down the power so we could assume she could access any other security or monitoring and knew exactly what he was up to.

The bit where Caleb doubted himself and presumably cut himself to see if he was an android, reminded me of The Matrix. What is real ? Until we have contrary information, who knows ?

ultimately did Ava fail the test. She Didnt show any emotion for Caleb after he risked everything for her.

 

[BIGBERNARDBRESSLAW]

Thanks Richard.

 

[BIGBERNARDBRESSLAW]

Victoria http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4226388/?ref_=nv_sr_1

It's a German film, but a lot of it is in English, though it's not always easy to understand. Around 15% of the dialogue is in German, and the version I watched didn't have subtitles, but I have a feeling that there never were subtitles, to leave the viewer as much in the dark as the main character. I may be wrong though.

Anyway, it's highly rated on IMDb, and I can see why. At first, I was a little unsure, and you just felt something really bad was going to happen to the main character, but it's not too long before you realise what you thought was definitely going to happen, isn't going to.

It's shot on one camera, on what seems to be one continous take (though I can't see how this is possible). The acting is superb, and you genuinely feel like you're watching a real life documentary at times.

I won't say any more, but I do highly recommend watching it.

Has anyone else seen this?

 

[expat_mike]

Has anyone else seen this?

not me, not yet.

 

[expat_mike]

ultimately did Ava fail the test. She Didnt show any emotion for Caleb after he risked everything for her.

This is the big debating point - at first sight this appears the action of a cold calculating robot, however many humans throughout history have befriended someone new, exploited them in some way, then discarded them when no longer useful.

So Avas behaviour appears human, and Nathan clearly wanted to believe she was concious. I think on the balance of probabilities Ava was concious, but I just have a nagging doubt that the director used an attractive actress for Ava, to make the audience form an emotional bond with the character, and subconciously bias them into wanting to believe Ava was concious.

 

[BIGBERNARDBRESSLAW]

I just have a nagging doubt that the director used an attractive actress for Ava, to make the audience form an emotional bond with the character, and subconciously bias them into wanting to believe Ava was concious.

Possibly, but didn't Nathan base her looks on what Caleb was viewing on porn sites?

 

[expat_mike]

True, I forgot that.

In that case it is plausible that by using a robot with a skin designed to replicate Calebs tastes, Nathan wanted Caleb to form an emotional bond with Ava, and subconciously bias him into wanting to believe Ava was concious.

Nathan had clearly put a lot of thought into the design of the experiment. This does raise the question as to whether testing Ava for conciousness was the sole aim of the experiment. Maybe Nathan was also interested in discovering to what extent, the information he obtained from his search engine, would enable him to accurately select the participants to his experiments.

 

[BIGBERNARDBRESSLAW]

There's an Ex Machina thread, which I read earlier, and JJBomber had this to say.

"I related a lot of it to Alan Turing. Indeed, they reference the Turing Test on several occasions. Nathan's isolated home could be Bletchley. The scene where AVA says not to trust Nathan is the same as Turing being advised not to trust one of his team, who indeed was a Russian spy. Similarly, the questions of sexuality in the film are referencing Turing's problems in 1940s Britain. Eventually Turing would kill himself, or did he? He may have accidently poisoned himself. Similarly did Nathan want the robots to kill him to prove that they had AI?"

I'm not sure if he's right, but he's defintely wrong about Bletchley, it's a s***hole. *biggrin*

 

[expat_mike]

There's an Ex Machina thread, which I read earlier, and JJBomber had this to say.

"I related a lot of it to Alan Turing. Indeed, they reference the Turing Test on several occasions. Nathan's isolated home could be Bletchley. The scene where AVA says not to trust Nathan is the same as Turing being advised not to trust one of his team, who indeed was a Russian spy. Similarly, the questions of sexuality in the film are referencing Turing's problems in 1940s Britain. Eventually Turing would kill himself, or did he? He may have accidently poisoned himself. Similarly did Nathan want the robots to kill him to prove that they had AI?"

I'm not sure if he's right, but he's defintely wrong about Bletchley, it's a s***hole. *biggrin*

i'm not sure either.

My uncle received part of his GPO training at Bletchley in the 1950s, but the place was well maintained then.

I was lucky to be part of a guided tour of Bletchley Park, before the funding for the recent renovations of the site, had been obtained. It was heartbreaking to see large sections of the huts gradually rotting away, so i am delighted at the progress that has since been made.

 

[BIGBERNARDBRESSLAW]

There's an Ex Machina thread, which I read earlier, and JJBomber had this to say.

"I related a lot of it to Alan Turing. Indeed, they reference the Turing Test on several occasions. Nathan's isolated home could be Bletchley. The scene where AVA says not to trust Nathan is the same as Turing being advised not to trust one of his team, who indeed was a Russian spy. Similarly, the questions of sexuality in the film are referencing Turing's problems in 1940s Britain. Eventually Turing would kill himself, or did he? He may have accidently poisoned himself. Similarly did Nathan want the robots to kill him to prove that they had AI?"

I'm not sure if he's right, but he's defintely wrong about Bletchley, it's a s***hole. *biggrin*

i'm not sure either.

My uncle received part of his GPO training at Bletchley in the 1950s, but the place was well maintained then.

I was lucky to be part of a guided tour of Bletchley Park, before the funding for the recent renovations of the site, had been obtained. It was heartbreaking to see large sections of the huts gradually rotting away, so i am delighted at the progress that has since been made.

I was thinking more about Bletchley town centre. I've never been to Bletchley Park, but as it's just down the road, I really should go.

I think JJBomber might be onto something, but I don't really know much about Turing, so I can't really say.

 

[expat_mike]

I think JJBomber might be onto something, but I don't really know much about Turing, so I can't really say.

The Turing test has been a start point for all AI training and discussions for the few decades. It has stood the test of time, as a way of identifying if a program (and all robots run programs) displays behaviour consistent with being intelligent, to the point that it is indistinguishable from a human being. A key feature of the test, is that the questioner cannot physically see the program/human, because this would bias the result.

Nathan says that he wants to move beyond the turing test, so that caleb can see the robot, but must now judge if ava is both intelligent and concious.

The references to turing thus far are consistent with the storyline, and plausible.

Regarding ava warning caleb not to trust nathan. I think this is entirely consistent with ava being intelligent enough to want to escape, and being aware that nathan will ensure that she does not. Consequently ava knows that she needs to turn caleb against nathan, and the natural thing to do is to persuade caleb to distrust nathan. I see no need to link this with turing and his team member.

The link to sexuality is slightly more plausible:

Turing was gay, trying to continue his career, in a world with homophobic norms, where if his true sexuality had been discovered, he could have been deemed a security risk, and lost his security clearance.

In contrast caleb is straight, and there is no suggestion in the film that he is thinking otherwise. However there is the suggestion that he has to search his conscience, to decide if he would be happy to have sex with a robot. So one could this was analogous, to the questions that turing may asked himself.

Nathan clearly tries to prime caleb into believing that sex with his robots is possible, and nothing unusual.

I don't think that Nathan ever wanted to be killed by his robots. He was clearly euphoric at his realisation that ava was concious - and seemed truly shocked when both ava and kyoko stab him, their creator. This shock is greatest in respect of kyoko - she has been programmed with most of the functionality of ava, apart from language skills, and appears to have some of the concious skills of ava, including possibly a developing sense of dislike of nathan.

 

[Frank Harvey]

I never even realised it was referencing Turing from The Immitation Game! Really enjoyed that film, but I'd forgotten his surname...

 

[richardw42]

Or she passed and was a sociopath.

 

[expat_mike]

Or she passed and was a sociopath.

Another human trait - but thankfully not all humans.

I did think that the stage had been left open for a sequel, about how ava comes to terms with the world full of humans.

This would require the sequel to plausibly reveal how she could keep recharging her batteries, otherwise it would be a short film.

 

[expat_mike]

Victoria http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4226388/?ref_=nv_sr_1

It's a German film, but a lot of it is in English, though it's not always easy to understand. Around 15% of the dialogue is in German, and the version I watched didn't have subtitles, but I have a feeling that there never were subtitles, to leave the viewer as much in the dark as the main character. I may be wrong though.

Anyway, it's highly rated on IMDb, and I can see why. At first, I was a little unsure, and you just felt something really bad was going to happen to the main character, but it's not too long before you realise what you thought was definitely going to happen, isn't going to.

It's shot on one camera, on what seems to be one continous take (though I can't see how this is possible). The acting is superb, and you genuinely feel like you're watching a real life documentary at times.

Just looked it up on Amazon, and both the bluray and dvd seem to be german language plus french (but not english) subtitles.

I shall keep this film in mind for the future.

 

[expat_mike]

It's very overrated, but worth watching for the music alone if you're a Jazz fan.

Whiplash was engaging enough. I'm no jazz aficionado, which possibly helped.

The film asks fascinating questions:

1) What price might one pay to achieve true excellence and is this trade worth it?

2) How far is it reasonable to push someone (and who ultimately benefits)?

I thought there were some issues with narrative and pacing. Fletcher was so clearly abusive from the outset that this left nowhere much to go.

As observation on the psychology of perfectionism the film felt pretty insightful. As commentary on student-mentor relationships, however, Whiplash felt like fantasy.

I have ordered a copy, so hopefully I shall watch it in February.