Robot Stories

26 August 2005. This sometimes cute, sometimes somber movie using robot-themed short stories addresses important matters of motherhood, love, and death. While not penetrating to the depths of our soul, each of the four stories offers the audience an emotional jolt of sympathy and reflection on the meaning of love and dying and moving on if necessary. The first story using a robotic adoption test baby offers a dark-humor approach to the connection between a mother and her baby, the path taken and the past carried on from mother to daughter. The second story focuses on death, the meaning of life while alive, and the ability to move on and leaving one's past for some future life. The third story provides an indirect humorous parody of love among robots and the anthropomorphic possibilities of mechanical electronics and our human awareness of such alternative experiences. The last and perhaps most troubling is one man's forced decision of either having his past life encapsulated into electronic eternity or letting his physical reality disappear forever. Each of these stories has some small, if not deeply moving universal answers, it probes the outer boundaries of matters that each of us at some time has or must face. A relevant peak into some of the most critical values and concepts facing us as human beings using of all things, something most inhuman - robots. Seven out of Ten Stars. Seven out of Ten Stars.

Great ideas for making us think about our times are the triumph of this picture. Made of four short stories, it offers us projections, realities, and premonitions. Each story ends up being very significant of some spectres of the man / machine interdependence. Slowly paced, shot on video, it looks like it's not very exciting, but still has a lot to take from it, with some patience. The two initial stories, the first about a couple that have to adopt a furby-like machine to prove that they are able to adopt a real baby, the second about a mother who starts completing his comatose son's toy robot collection, are the weakest. The two final stories (one about an android who develops human feelings and the other about a man dying in a world where you no longer die, but instead you're uploaded), are the strongest, even if at a minimal level. So, the real achievements of "Robot Stories" are discrete, and very minimal. But it still pays off.

The film "Robot Stories" carries many of the same positives and negatives that many films have that are, in effect, a series of thematically similar short films tied together.

"My Robot Baby"

This film was the second least broad concept of the four and is consequently the second most interesting tale. Like a Real Life `The Sims' game, this film offers a scenario in which a couple receives a robot child as test to see if they can care for a real baby.

Of the four, this one is perhaps the most naturally acted and directed. It's a smart choice to have as the first film in the series, because it is impossible to figure out what direction it will end up going in until it finally inches to the end. There are times when it seems like it is a Twilight Zone style alternate universe tale, times when it seems like a charming family drama. While we care for the relationship between the couple, we can't figure out how we should care about Marcia after the beginning scene of her as a child. The robot child starts to act more and more berserk, and the film starts to veer off in a direction like it will become a horror movie.

While the film sometimes seemed like it would go in an obvious direction, let it be said that Pak never takes the easy way out and has a way of controlling just what expectations are made for the viewer. This Story deserves ***/****.

"The Robot Fixer"

Easily the most moving, timeless tale of the four, this story gives the film an early peak. The story is the tale of Bernice Chin and her daughter, Grace, as they visit Bernice's estranged son Wilson, who has been hit by a car and is in a coma. Bernice and Grace stay in Wilson's apartment during their stay to see if Wilson recovers.

Bernice is frustrated by how estranged she has gotten from her son in the many years previous. She attempts to make up for lost time by cleaning everything in his rooms and making them spotless and presentable. When Grace finds a brand of toy robots that Wilson collected as children, Bernice finds a new mission: She will replace all the missing pieces of the toys and make Wilson's collection complete. She believes that if she can repair his treasured toy collection, perhaps Wilson could be revived from the coma.

The direction, acting, and screenwriting give this piece a wonderfully natural, believable feeling. Because of Pak's charming simplicity, the story is beautifully relatable with just about anyone that could watch it. "The Robot Fixer" finds Pak catering completely to his strengths. The movie includes many subtle nuances and builds on its main themes quite knowingly, as when Grace tells her mom of how valuable each of Wilson's organs could be donated to many hopeful organ receivers around the country. It becomes evident how meaningful Bernice's struggle to mend her child with the toy pieces is, and we start to see there is a bigger meaning here than simply Bernice trying to mend her estranged relationship with her son.

"The Robot Fixer" is a timeless tale that moved me to tears. If this section of the film could be separated into its own short, it would certainly be one of the year's very best. On its own, it gets ****/****.

"Machine Love"

After an early peak, the film hits its lowest point with "Machine Love". This film's premise seems to be made on a series of "What if?"'s so long that a viewer either has to be with it or totally against it. For some reason, there is a requirement for computers to type up information they already know for 12 hours a day. Also, robots long to have love only to be like other people in the workplace. This premise didn't have any believability to me, and especially will not appeal to anyone that didn't buy the film A.I. (which much more confidently and thoroughly explored the same thematic issues this film does)

This film isn't particularly amusing or interesting, and the premise is thin even for a half hour short. The whole story seems like it was written by someone with lesser talents and a lot lower filmmaking vision than the previous two films, even if it is admittedly very well acted and directed. The robots actually seem and look like robots, and the little touches of the robot discovering about personal interactions are nuanced. But overall, it gets */****.

"Clay"

The purpose of "Clay" seems to be to transcend the previous three stories into a tale of the finality of life. If you take the aspect of substituting love for humans with love for a robot from "My Robot Baby", combine with it the futuristic innovations of "Machine Love", and the aspect of coping with death through machines with "The Robot Fixer", you could possibly come up with the film "Clay" as an ending point. The premise involves a man who is dying of a terminal illness and his potential future as a "scanned" person in the computerized afterlife. This film has the most inventive premise of the four, but...

Unfortunately, there isn't a single aspect from this film that hasn't already been explored in another film. Any of the visions of technology have been given to us before, most notably in the previous two Tom Cruise Sci-Fi vehicles, Vanilla Sky and Minority Report. They both explore using technology to recreate lives after death. Soderbergh's Solaris goes even a step further, in that it explored the psychological underpinnings of living with a false version of a past love. Anything explored here has been explored much more deeply before.

Basically "Clay" is as uninspired in its view of the material as "The Robot Fixer" was unique and powerful. It gets **

Overall, the film gets **1/2, but "The Robot Fixer" deserves to be seen by anyone interested in independent cinema.

I saw this movie recently at an independent theater nearby, and after the film director and star Greg Pak was there to answer questions and answers. First of all, this small, bearded, laid-back man looked nothing like he did in the movie: a muscular, completely shaven, stiff robot. This small movie is very independent, made on a very small budget, and in a couple of the four short vignettes, that shows. The most touching segment is called "Clay," in which an old man must choose between a normal death or keeping his mind alive for ever. This is the most mysterious, most touching, smartest, and works the most on the small budget and resources. The other three are decent. Pak's movie has the simple message: that the human heart will always prevail, even if Robots take over most human activites. In the first segment, a woman embraces a little plastic robot that looks like an egg with eyes drawn on by a Sharpie marker. In the second one, an old woman searches the cities for little action figures that are supposed to be extremely valuable. In the third, a robot falls in love with another robot. The fourth is Clay. This movie is far from perfect, but the quirks and touches of human life are enough to see past the imperfections and inconsistencies.

My grade: 7/10

first off, this is low budget and the filming debut of this director (or so it seems). Judge it as that... of course it's not perfect, as the people behind it are still finding out which of their ideas work on screen and which don't. This film then, for the most part works, and if you think it over afterwards it works even better.

You gotta admire the vision and care that went into each of the 4 stories that each touch on a different side of the same subject: how humans relate to machines and then relate back to real life. The story about the comatose boy his mother and his action figures was especially touching, as was the one about the older man that just wants to die, both beautiful roles by the mother and the sculptor. It seems the director is at best when making a 'small' story, he does it with a tenderness and visual power rarely seen. This leaves the actors plenty of room to present their characters in subtle ways and not having to carry the weight of the story by overacting.

The acting from the predominantly Asian cast is very good, and it's nice to see asians in a non-stereotypical role in American film. The imagery shows the low budget, but the locations are well chosen and it's well directed. The only weak point is when it gets exciting the director has trouble picking up the pace and really conveying the sense of fear and adrenaline the characters must feel. These moments are very sporadic (just one in the first story..my least favorite anyway).

This is a movie to watch, if you have an open mind and can relate to the people on screen. If you're looking for more traditional sci-fi themes.. look further. Calling this movie sci-fi just because it deals with robots is missing the point. This is more geared towards drama. And it's good.. especially for a filming debut. Definitely a director to watch for in the future. A man with vision, ideas and original stories to tell.