Movie : Leisure Machine
Director : Jim Batt
If machines were programmed to cry, how often would they complain about their pain?
The movie depicts a world of sterile solitude through a song. The song suggests an abysmal metamorphosis of man into an object cursed with the horror of unidimensionality. A domain of mirrors suggest an excess of the self trapped in the prison of an all devouring form of narcissism. The song takes us to a place where the artificial reigns supreme. Each and every human being is a commodity with dry specifications. The real is irrelevant, on the contrary , desire has nothing sublime about it. The force of contact appears to be restricted within one’s reach. One must derive pleasure from the movement of one’s own hands, limbs and lips. The machine has assumed control over the mortal domain of consciousness. The consciousness of the machine is relentlessly eternal.
The message in the movie is rather a dark one. It suggests the disintegration of man into rancid commodities. It further suggests the alienation of man from the realm of passion and rationality.
The dystopia might not reside anywhere distant according to the director. It is happening like Eliot suggests , not in a bang but in a whimper.
