The film relies on four characters (one of whom has no dialogue yet) to portray a beautiful and somewhat horrifying story in a modern apartment with great tension..jpeg)
Male lead and female lead, human and machine
For movies, the setting is absolutely the top priority. Many movie sets require a high-quality team to ensure the visual effects of the movie, such as the overwhelming chrysanthemums in "The Golden Armor" (Uh, please feel free) Understand), the Pandora planet in "Avatar" requires not only solid technology, but also smart imagination. This is a magic weapon that attracts us to movies. However, some movies have abandoned this magic weapon fundamentally. The entire movie’s space is limited to a specific scene, such as the classic "Chain Saw" (because the attributive "classic" is used earlier, it is no longer necessary. Let me emphasize which is the first one), last year's domestically produced film "Twelve Citizens" is also a good example. The movie I want to talk about today is also a leader in this regard. The film relies on four characters (one of whom has no dialogue yet) to portray a beautiful and somewhat horrifying story in a modern apartment with great tension. If you use one word to summarize "Ex Machina", then it is the Turing test. The Turing test is derived from a paper "Computer Machines and Intelligence" written in 1950 by Alan Turing, a pioneer in computer science and cryptography. The content is that if a computer can answer a question raised by a human tester within 5 minutes A series of questions and more than 30% of the answers make the tester mistakenly believe that they were answered by humans, and the computer passes the test. Later, after a series of evolutions, the more popular saying is that a person performs the test. The test object is a computer, but the tester does not know that the testee is a computer. By asking questions, let him make judgments. . If the tester admits that the testee is human, the test is passed. The concept of the movie "Mechanic Ji" originated from the Turing test, but the director processed and improved it. In the original Turing test, the tester could not see the testee and did not know in advance whether the opponent was a robot or a human. In the movie, the tester was told before the test that the object he was testing was a robot. And you have to spend a week with her, and then subjectively judged by the tester whether the robot has free will, or self-awareness. This may seem like a trap, but it makes people want to jump in. The male protagonist Jia Li is a code farmer. Like any code farmer, he looks a little clumsy and cute. He won the company's first prize and was allowed to live with the legendary boss Nathan in his secret villa for a week. The story begins here. From here on, a lot of metaphors appeared in the film, first of all Nathan’s villa. The villa is built between a mountainous area with lush vegetation (although the film does not specifically explain, this mountain forest should also be purchased by Nathan, outsiders are not allowed to enter, and the location of the helicopter landing is a hint), there are streams, waterfalls and wind blowing over Layers of green ripples. In sharp contrast is the high modernity and closedness of the villa. After entering the villa, Jiali signed a confidentiality statement and was told the real purpose of the trip, which was to test an artificial intelligence Ava developed by him himself. In a later dialogue, Jia Li told Ava about a famous thought experiment, Mary's Black and White Room. It probably means that Mary is a scientist who studies color. She knows all the knowledge about color, including the wavelength of light, how the retina receives it, how nerve cells transmit visual signals, etc., but she can only use a black and white TV screen all her life. Observing a black and white room, in her subjective experience, there has never been all colors except black and white. Suddenly one day she came outside and saw other colors. Will she gain new knowledge because of it? This metaphors the difference between artificial intelligence and humans. Although artificial intelligence is obviously superior to humans in many aspects, such as computing power, survivability, manufacturing ability, etc., they are like Mary who only knows black and white. Ava captured this hint very cleverly, and it can also be seen from it that it desires and yearns for the outside world. This desire and yearning is a very huge motivation. Another female character, Kyoko, looks like a beautiful vase, and in the uncut version also gives full play to the biggest role of a vase. But think about it a little bit. In a movie where only four people appear, the director is definitely not as simple as putting up a vase. In other words, in addition to viewing, the vase also has its function, such as arranging flowers inside or smashing someone's head.
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The well-behaved Kyoko also has an unknown side
A very interesting part of the movie is the questioning session. According to the original purpose of the Turing Test, questions should be initiated by humans, but in the movie, the questioning party is artificial intelligence. Ava asked Jiali a total of five questions, one of which asked whether he was a good person. This is a meaningful question. From the perspective of artificial intelligence, they look at the outside world in a concrete way. They are used to describing the objective existence of volume, temperature, hardness, and material. Good people and bad people are clearly the category of human morality. This question seems simple, but it is estimated that no one will be able to give an answer immediately. Am I a good person? How to be a good person? What is the standard of a good person? Can you not be called a good person as long as you have done a bad thing once, or even have a bad idea? These confusions are all extensions brought about by that one problem. It is not clear to human beings, let alone artificial intelligence. So this question is also a metaphor, implying Ava's temptation of human morality, and it is also a manifestation of her self-consciousness. For the last question, Ava asked Jiali with a face of innocence, "Do you want to be with me?" Although the director switched the shots without asking Jiali to answer, she was able to resonate with Jiali in the hearts of the audience. He thought, and, very much. Through a series of contacts with Ava, he has fallen in love with this artificial intelligence. From then on, the movie began to make great strides, moving from a seemingly small-cost science fiction production to a classic. Nathan was the first to start. He revealed the true purpose of Jiali's test, which made Jiali and Ava's seemingly seamless plan collapsed. It turned out that everything they did was part of Nathan's experiment. Then there was Jia Li, who successfully deceived Nathan through his harmless appearance of humans and animals, and told the latter that he had already seen his surveillance and implemented the plan in advance. It seems that Jiali seems to be the final winner. However, this is not the case. It is not only these two humans who are also left behind, but also the artificial intelligence Ava. This allows it to become her, come out of the black and white room, and see the colorful world.
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Mary who escaped the black and white house
So about the fifth question: "Do you want to be with me?" From a normal point of view, a person asks if you want to be with her, provided that she also likes you. But there is another situation, that is, you have use value to her. You want to be with me, very good, but sorry, I don't want to be with you. At this point, the Turing test on Ava really ended. Obviously, she passed the test. Finally, about the director and actors. The director of the film is Alex Garland, and the amazing thing is that "Mechanic Ji" is its first director's work. But there is a reason for any emergence under the sky. Before that, Alex was already a well-known sci-fi screenwriter. His screenwriting works "28 Days of Surprise" and "The Catastrophe of the Sun" both made sci-fi fans interested. Ledao. Especially "28 Days of Shocking Change", this is a masterpiece that can't be bypassed by any zombie theme list. Alicia Vikander, the actor of Mechanic Ji, won the best supporting actress at the 88th Oscar this year with her outstanding performance in "Danish Girl". Domnar Gleason, the actor who plays Jiali, is also familiar to Chinese fantasy fans. The reason is that he has appeared in the British drama "Black Mirror", which is very popular among fantasy fans. Coincidentally, in that episode, His role is exactly the robot. In addition, he also starred in a romantic fantasy movie "Time Traveler", which is highly recommended. Domnar and Alisica have collaborated in the previous "Anna Karenina". Another male protagonist, Nathan’s actor Oscar Isaac, I just say a little bit about him. Now in the hit "X-Men: Apocalypse", he played the villain Apocalypse, but because of makeup For this reason, the audience can hardly connect the two together, just as confused and heartbroken as the girls who went to "Warcraft".