Ex Machina had been on Netflix France for a long time. But Alex Garland’s film will soon leave the catalog. Don’t miss this acclaimed futuristic masterpiece.
The 2010s produced a few masterpieces in their own right in the realm of science fiction. Among them, we think for example of First contact by Denis Villeneuve, but also to Ex Machina, by Alex Garland. The film is available on Netflix, but it will leave the catalog on May 15, 2022. Do not hesitate to watch it.
Caleb is a coder in the BlueBook company – a sort of fictitious Google – when he wins a stay at the big boss’s residence to meet him. But it’s not just a professional courtesy visit. Caleb must, ultimately, participate in an experiment in this isolated house in the heart of the mountain: interact with a young woman named Ava – a next-generation artificial intelligence. A strange relationship develops with her.
Ex Machina, one of the greatest SF films
In addition to an excellent cast – Alicia Vikander, Oscar Isaac, Domhnall Gleeson, Sonoya Mizuno –, Ex Machina is one of those films that are at the pinnacle of what SF can offer. The film manages to bring to life the Turing test, a method of determining the ability of an artificial intelligence to imitate human conversation. Ex Machina thus questions the borders of humanity, but also the approach aimed at building machines that have our appearance.
And this point is reinforced by a limpid writing, without embellishment, worthy of a staging as refined as in the theater. The calm pace of the film gives way to clever dialogue and ethereal technological settings, without ever boring for a single second. Ex Machina is all the more brilliant in that, if it takes up themes discussed at length in SF, it deploys treasures of narration to make them accessible to all: you don’t need to be a fan of SF to love this feature film.
Alex Garland’s paw adds a very disturbing dimension to the film. The behavior and intentions of Ava, the AI who takes on the features of a young woman, are never really clear. The same goes for Nathan, the inventor played by Oscar Isaac, with permanent ambiguity.
For all these reasons, if you are a Netflix subscriber, take advantage of these last days of the film’s presence in the catalog to discover it – or see it again!
Two more films are leaving the Netflix catalog in May
- Ready Player One : May 31, 2022
- Pitch Perfect : May 15
