BigBug

Dystopian yet familiar realities lugubriously haunt Jean-Pierre Jeunet's BigBug, as a future wherein which AI predominates officiously contends with the bourgeoisie.

I suppose there's the theory that what's presented on television or in film will be regarded as fact, or at least find an adoring audience, and that audience will proceed to advertise.

Thus, if the irate right was slowly replaced by cantankerous A.I, due to the bipolar resonance of the popular matrix unobservant citizens unconsciously consume, and the bizarro ways in which so many people trust disingenuous initiatives designed to cheat them, a manifest sadomasochistic uniformity could one day emerge and in the darkness bind them. 

Within BigBug, one of two major political parties has been replaced by octogenarian robots, who have slowly used advanced cybernetics to brutally suffocate a robust culture.

The bourgeoisie still attempts to flourish within the mechanized meticulous structure, having adapted to the ubiquitous rules and incumbent authoritarian connectivity. 

Additional robots not associated with politics worry they're becoming obsolete, and genuinely confer to find a way to consistently maintain their resolute use-value.

Thus, both The Terminator and ye olde Data find themselves concretely represented within, a potential future embraced through comedic horror alternatively critiquing cold-hearted lockdowns. 

Artists are lampooned and books are burned, it's like a blasé happy-go-lucky thrill ride through prognostic annihilation. 

Could reality television take on such extremes is it already that bad I never really got into it (I was planting trees in the forests of Northern Canada when Survivor came out), I've never been able to just watch people interact on television, I prefer old school creative storytelling and mockumentaries.

The ruthless sadist who seeks to control every aspect of postmodern life, with duplicitous totalitarian reckoning, is still sincerely critiqued within.

As are cultures that would turn their institutions over to robots to become more efficient, the human factor obliviously overlooked in the superlative practices, grandstanding bravado.

In an obtuse condescending way BigBug reminds its audience of the value of criticism, and that critical strategies should be taught in school to hold back the onslaught of pervasive credulity.

Robot politicians? Robot police? It doesn't have to happen, it's not inevitable.

Prefer the old school humanistic methodologies.

Round the campfire.

Settlin' in. 

The Congress

A thought provoking hypothesis concerning the future of acting descends into dystopian banality as Ari Folman's Congress transforms its initial personal conflict into a convoluted cultural malaise, the leap from the subjective to the universal itself profound, its execution entangled in histrionic thickets.

Computer generated cults and combines engulf the narrative's characterization in a co-opted corporate/revolutionary temporally and physically unbound constraint, which dialectically plays with animation and the corporeal to enticingly comment on a general contemporary lack of concern with poverty and alienation, the individual escapes or s/he suffers, and/or escapes and suffers, with no plan in place to improve downtrodden standards of living.

The relationship between selling your character to a studio through the process of having it duplicated by a complex array of computational codes thereafter used in whatever film the studio sees fit, regardless of whether or not you approve of the role, seems to have been commercialized en masse, individuals escaping to an animated realm to avoid finding solutions to real problems, this realm, probably representing current obsessions with the internet, which can be a remarkable tool for activism and engagement, enables individuals to become their own ideal self on the upload, leaving everything behind in the construct.

Or not. I don't know. This film's a mess. I felt like I had the flu watching its second act. I like complex takes on the byzantine nature of sociopolitical dynamics, but the acts don't communicate well with one another, there's no chrysalis, they just happen.

Without this communication, the film needs to stand tall on its own thereby encouraging you to see it again, like Mulholland Dr. or Lost Highway, and The Congress, with its misplaced animation, becomes too melodramatic and opaque, its structure obfuscating its outputs.

As an obscure piece of relevant cultural commentary it succeeds.

As an enduring film, I'm not so sure.