The_DATo

When one considers that this is a low budget film made by an almost entirely novice group of film makers and actors you have to give it the respect it deserves. With this thought in mind I upped my rating from a 6 to a 7.

The physical and psychological changes that often accompany adolescence often make this period of our lives the most trying and difficult to navigate. This can also be a difficult thing for a writer to project in a story because it is subjective, but for those of us who have gone through it and those of a younger generation who are experiencing it in the present I think the film rings true.

I appreciated the artistic side as well - the metaphorical use of weather which was tangential to the scene being depicted, messages on advertising signs which related to the scene before the viewer, and other things such as the more abstract use of waves propagating in a swimming pool like radio waves reaching out into the void hoping for some response.

Considering that they were more or less amateur actors I thought each and every actor, without exception, turned in a fine performance. I also thought that the writing and directing were quite good too.

What is the last numeral in the Pi sequence? What is the meaning of infinity? Where is the transition located between the two views of a wire frame cube? And what has actually taken place when one has played a "God move" in the game of Go - a game whose possible iterations are greater in number than the sum total of all the atoms in the universe?

This documentary enthralled me from start to finish and I am neither a Go player nor someone versed in computer science. It is one of many stories involving mankind's first faltering steps in the development of artificial intelligence. This movie summarizes one of these attempts against the backdrop of what is believed to be mankind's oldest and most difficult strategy game. Perhaps the greatest human mind to have ever played the game of Go is pitted against a computer system which has taught itself to play Go through a process known as "re-enforced learning" in which a program driving a computer played itself through millions of iterations and learned from its mistakes, much the same way as humans do, but with unbelievably greater speed.

The movie demonstrates the greatness and the limitations of both the machine and the man - the greatness and intelligence of the computer scientist, and the greatness, spirit and nobility of the human heart. When watching this movie I was reminded of the legend of John Henry, "a steel driving man" - a man pitted against a machine in an almost superhuman competitive effort of honor and determination.

This movie is probably not for everyone, all I can say is that virtually everyone I have recommended it to in the past has later expressed their sincere gratitude to me for having appraised them of it.

This wonderful movie speaks for itself and there are so many other excellent reviews here which sing its praises that anything I could add would simply be redundant. So I'd like to do something a little bit different in this comment and speak directly to the movie's theme, and its message.

Our family is first - generation Italian and we had so much in common with the Irish especially, and all other immigrants as well; things like Elis Island, religion, family clans, poverty, the tenements; but perhaps most importantly the craving for freedom, liberty, and an opportunity if for only just the chance to build a better life, a life which was not afforded by the mother country. Maybe this is why America became as great as it has become. Those immigrants, when you think about it, were extraordinarily courageous - to leave everything they knew behind and boldly sail with only the things they could carry into the unknown, bringing with them elements of their own culture which mixed with those elements of the cultures of other countries like ingredients in a cook pot ultimately creating by their blending a magnificent stew of talent unknown anywhere else on earth.

America lauds its historic pioneers who traversed the continent in covered wagons, but was it less courageous, less bold, or less of an achievement to cross an entire ocean? And how many of the sons of those immigrants shed their blood or their lives fighting in defense of their adopted country? How many immigrant hands were calloused, lives lost, families torn asunder building the America we now enjoy ... analogously, brick by brick in every trade and professional endeavor? The countries which saw them leave their shores little knew that one day the efforts of those bedraggled masses would one day lend their weight to create a magnificent superpower.

Anyone reading this might find it interesting to know that my Italian brother, from our own immigrant family, much like the movie, also married an Irish girl.