The Machine is set in the near future where Britain is still in recession and the there is a cold war between the West and China. Vincent McCarthy (Toby Stephens) a scientist working with the MOD is trying to create an implant that will bring human feeling and emotion back to the war veterans that he is treating, which will also be used in not only the robotic soldiers but the robotic peacekeepers as well. It is revealed that Vincent's daughter is extremely mentally disabled, providing another interest for his research.
The implants that he has developed make the patients extremely violent and also seemingly unable to communicate. Vincent teams up with Ava (Caity Lotz) who has developed software in which the robot isn't programmed, but learns from talking with her creator and shows signs of life and emotion. He hopes that with this technology he will make the breakthrough to making a conscious machine and on a personal side help cure his daughter. Ava becomes suspicious of the operation after she enters a restricted area and finds that the patients are kept as prisoners and does not trust Vincent's boss Thomson (Denis Lawson), and suspects his motives are against what she believes in.
Ava's snooping didn't go unnoticed by Thomson and he had her assassinated. Vincent then goes about putting Ava's software into a cyborg which is in the image of Ava herself, and so the Machine is born. To find out what happens I suggest you get to the cinema in March 2014 when the film will be released in the UK.
The Q&A at the end of the film with director Caradog James and producer John Giwa-Amu gave a greater insight into the films motives and workings. Carodog explained about the great level of research he did in preparation for the film, visiting the MOD and looking into the research they are currently conducting into robotics where they are looking at organic cells to assist how they develop Artificial Intelligence. He mentioned the quantum theory work of Roger Penrose who has researched consciousness and the brain. On talking about the future of humans and cyborgs, he thought the more realistic future would see how we augment our bodies such as with Google Glasses and he also mentioned how one audience member at the premiere in Tribeca had a chip in his hand to be able to access his computer. So maybe the future for is not too distant! Most of the audience enjoyed the film and questions of what it means to be human obviously arose, as well as the comparisons to Frankenstein. There was one festival goer who exclaimed that he thought the end of the film was like a scene in a video game and accused the producer and director of adding this for monetary reasons. They came back with the difficulty of balancing commerce with art, and that commerce doesn't necessarily mean making money but reaching a greater audience. Carodog finished by saying that their next film will be a horror, that they hope someone in the audience will be so scared they will have a heart attack – he hoped it would be the guy that asked the last question!
To see the review on the Bath Film Festival blog please visit:
http://bathffblogger.wordpress.com/2013/12/09/the-machine/
