The Trouble with Being Born

Very good film. While some persons are worried or scandalized for the implied sex relations between a man and one android with the features of a little girl in the first part of the movie, what made the stronger impact on me was the unethical ability of human beings to destroy real emotion through the dehumanization of technology and, if I give human value to the android, alas! ...what a terrible "fate" the little robot in this movie has.

On the other hand, we are talking about a construct, which makes it more absurd to talk about any sexual conduct we disapprove. Here we are dealing with a human being and a robot, so I think we should find new words to define the simulacrum of the human something that they do together, which weakens moralistic derision when one realizes that one of the components is a robot.

The first story was annoying to me, because of the character of the father who has not processed that her daughter disappeared ten years ago, but the second part comes to life with the appearance of an old lady who longs for her brother who died 60 years ago. In the end, the film balances its two stories by complementing one with the other. Good script, direction and acting by all.

P. S. Elli reminded me of Edith Scob in «Les yeux sans visage».

Android sci-fi and memories. Androids that eat regular food and smell "cigarettes and sunscreen." Recalls elements of a superior US play/movie called "Marjorie Prime." The regeneration of androids with memories is scary in the real world. The first segment implies sexual relationships, though no explicit scene is shown. The relationship of animals with androids and humans are a minor subplot (a cat in one segment, a dog in the other. The reincarnated android is bizarre but typical of the horror genre; yet this is not a horror film. The title of the film is also the title of an unrelated book on philosophy by E M Cioran in French, written using aphorisms. "Marjorie Prime'' was comparatively a superior sci-fi film on memories and the importance of virtual human beings.

Too timid to say what it wants to say. Too artless to be artful. Diffuse and half-formed concepts. It wants to be child pornography, but is afraid to say so. It hides its true feelings by trying to be artsy and conceptual, but gets bogged down between the lie and the truth. It fails as art. It fails as child pornography. It fails as propaganda.

Who is "papa" and why does he have an android daughter? Was there ever a real daughter? And where is "mum"? If he had a real daughter who died and replaced her with this android, why didn't he replace "mum" too? Since he's sexually involved with the child android, are we to assume he was sexually involved with his real daughter if she rever existed? Or is "papa" just some rich pervert who bought a child android? Why can't she remember certain things one moment, but then later remembers them. Are these actual memories, or just "realism" artifacts papa implants in her to enhance the feeling that he's having a loving, sexual relationship with a real daughter? Because we know that's what this movie us trying to sell: The concept that parents can indulge their sexual fantasies with their children in a healthy, loving way.

I think others that have reviewed this movie assume Elli is a replacement daughter for an organic daughter who died. I disagree. Papa is just a broken, single man with an obsession fornaked little girls. In one scene, we see him remove Elli's tongue and vagina in the morning (after a night spent together all night that "mum never would have allowed but doesn't need to know about") and wash them in the kitchen sink.

Why try to hide this message behind artifice and half-hearted artsy-fartsy bulls**t? If you really feel your deviance is nothing to be ashamed of, why then do you seem so ashamed of it? And if you're that ashamed, why air it out in the open? Just go hide in a dark closet with your pedophilia fetish and stop trying to convince us and yourself it's nothing to be ashamed of. You're embarrassing yourself.

I didn't know what to expect going into this. I've heard the stories about the supposed subject matter and all that but i'll watch anything remotely sci fi so there we go. We got a machine? Yes i'll watch that.

What is this movie about anyway. Nobody knows in short. It feels like 2 separate movies stitched together in a rather incoherent manner. I don't like brooding drawn out movies in expose style and this is just that.. too much pointless scenes in the dark (literally blair witch project b roll forest footage...) that serve no purpose and contribute nothing.

The first part of the movie appears to be about a man who buys/acquires somehow a machine that looks like his daughter at the age she disappeared. So the machine is there to basically fill that void but it gets a little sexual because said machine is just sex doll made to look like the kid he lost. Right. So that's the part people cry about but there nothing really shown in the movie and there are more suggestive kids shows rated PG if we have to be honest. It therefore is not a love story either.

Perhaps it is a drama about the relationship between people and machines? Well, cannot be because it totally bombs at showing the whole person vs machine interaction. It tries to use horrible narration to exemplify some struggle between the real and mechanical but I just cannot care to even bother to think of it because it is so badly executed. Star trek did more with data, alita battle angel, which is a movie about fighting did more on this topic... i robot also did a better a job. Video games like detroit become human focused on this subject matter in depth and pulled it off... This here, which is supposed to be a movie about just that sort of thing, does nothing. It fails completely to the point you are wondering what am i watching. It feels like somebody had an idea, did not know what it was but made a movie about it regardless. The cast is dull. The CGI cast is equally dull. Everything is dull. Moody, boring, non engaging, non thought provoking, flat. Just bad. I cannot think of a single memorable scene or event in 90 minutes of run time. It was so nonsensical i was hoping for maybe something stupid to happen just so i have a memory 5 minutes after the credits... but alas, no. Nothing occurs that you can take with you. If i think hard enough, perhaps i will remember that the lead in the first part liked to drink. Congratulations! You have left the viewer with a memory of a man drinking his sorrows away. So unique........

Some more footage in the dark, random walking through a forest. Time for a reboot into the second part of the story. Now we have a robot, perhaps the same one from the first part (nothing is clear here - did she run away or was it a new unit) is sent to another home to again fill the void of a missing child. This time the robot is turned into a boy. The owner doesn't want it but their relatives insist and so we have this whole moody, lethargic starring at the nothing scenes that constitute of "go away i dont like you" and the machine staring blankly in some communist era german flat scene after scene.

There is no dialogue to speak of. No feelings, no soundtrack, no nothing.

This is just bad. If you were hoping for a deep movie about machine vs human run away. If you were hoping for at least something cringe worthy to watch, not it either.

If you want blandness and confusion, perfect. Step right in and inhale the disappointment.

I really can't understand why directors shoot films with literally no lighting. If they want me to "appreciate" what they are doing then I have to see the thing in the first place. At the beginning, I gave it the benefit of the doubt as I assumed it was some kind of "pre-birth" scene from the child's perspective but that wasn't it at all and - be warned - this happens again and again throughout the film.

As for the content itself, previously I had the Kubrick/Spielberg "AI" film down as *the* most boring film I had ever seen about child robots - but this one has it beaten hands down. At one level this presents a couple of plausible scenarios as to what grieving / damaged people might do with this kind of technology once/if it becomes available and maybe I could have worked harder to look for some kind of deep and meaningful conclusions if they are indeed there, but it didn't earn that, I felt.

Not recommended.