Film Analysis Of Alex Garland's Movie 'Ex Machina'

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Alex Garland’s movie, Ex Machina, seems to be another fantasy based film where humans create machines that are able to behaves as humans, but this film looks beyond behavior and into deeper concepts such as control of the mind and not just the body. A scene that displays this idea is when Caleb slashes into his arm and begins to push the blood out to ensure that he is still human and not a machine. Throughout this movie, especially in this particular scene, demonstrates main interaction with a robot, which then leads to minimal human interaction and sleepless nights. While this scene could have just been for attention or to add dramatic effect to the movie, but seeing the scene through a different perspective of other intellectual minds, …show more content…

Caleb dashes into his bathroom and slams the door behind him. He then begins to pull on his skin and investigate his face (Ex Machina). He goes to even more drastic measures as he disassembles a razor and induces a deep cut within his arm. The blood begins to ooze all over the sink and the floor. At the start of the scene, the camera looks into the mirror as if the audience was Caleb pulling and tugging at the skin. As he examines his face it can be seen through the mirror that Caleb has big, dark circles under his eyes and his face is very pale in color (Ex Machina). As he cuts into his arm the audience still has the same angle is if they were Caleb proceeding to cut through the skin, but as the blood begins to flow, the camera angle switches from first person to third person. Through this third person angle of the camera, it shows Caleb standing in a very exhausted position with his head hanging low and his back at a hunched angle. All of these body positions that could be seen through the various camera angles could be assumed that Caleb’s lack of sleep take a toll on his body and is now affecting his …show more content…

At the start of the scene there is only silence to be heard, but as the scene progresses the music starts. This music is an intense, head throbbing, and daunting sound that has a mesmerizing effect that causes confusion to the mind and body. This type of music sends the blood rushing through one’s entire body making the heart race and sweat cumulate. Those feelings are the exact feelings of Caleb as this genre of music begins to play and he frantically begins to dismantle the razor blade and forcefully drags the blade across his arm to let the blood run freely. This sudden change of behavior and drastic measures taken could be the sub conscious control of the sleep deprivation taking over Caleb’s actions. During this moment in the scene, Caleb’s uncontrollable behavior of the cutting of his arm could have been linked to the control of sleep deprivation on the mind, which then correlates to the meme control mentioned in Charles Gleick’s

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