Electroma

Well. Everything I'd read about this film said the cinematography was fantastic. There were very vague, in retrospect suspiciously elusive summaries of the plot: two robots journeying through a wasteland, ostensibly in a quest to become human.

The cinematography is great: the film is wonderful to look at at. And the beginning of the film is quite entertaining, with two robots joyriding through the desert in an odd Ferrari (you can tell by the tail-lights), stopping off at an FX studio to be given human appearances, then nonchalantly strolling through an all-robot town, drawing stares and eventually a lynch mob.

About thirty minutes into the film, the two robots begin a journey into the desert with a long, slow take of them walking away from the camera. No problem, I tell myself, I've seen a few Tarkovsky films, I can handle long takes.

They walk in the desert for the next forty minutes.

Eventually one of the robots tires of this and gets the other to kill him. This is a metaphor for the dreams we must abandon in our quest for self-realization. Ten or twenty minutes later, the other robot wants out as well, but cannot kill himself because his self-destruct button is right between his shoulder blades. This is a metaphor for the audience.

The ideas behind the film are simple and universal: the idealist/artist striking out to make their mark on the world, indulging in pure freedom of expression, and being rejected, vilified, or otherwise outcast. And the film itself starts off well, before dragging the audience along on its own Exodus.

The final word: more people walked out of the theater while this was playing that any other film I've seen. Which certainly says something.

* * * R A T I N G * * *

Electorama (IMDB)

Wince : [_____] (No dialog)
Flinch : [_____] (No violence)
Retch : [_____] (No gore)
Gape : [_____] (No anything!)

Beerequisite : [****_]
Pornability : [_____]
Obscurity : [***__]
Explicability : [**___]

What I would do different: Right before the credits, I would have had Daft Punk come onscreen, face the audience, and say "Are you still here? What the f*ck is wrong with you?!?"