By akademiotoelektronik, 08/03/2023
A. I. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | Film critic
In a 21st century, where melting ice has submerged the majority of habitable land and caused famines and exoduses, robots have become an essential component of daily life and now perform most domestic tasks. However, Professor Hobby wants to go even further by creating the first sentient android: a child capable of developing a vast repertoire of emotions and memories. Shortly after this announcement, David, an eleven-year-old robot, enters the home of Henry and Monica Swinton, a couple whose young son has been cryogenized while awaiting the discovery of a cure for his serious illness. Soon abandoned by his adoptive mother, David begins a perilous journey in search of his identity and his secret part of humanity.
Once upon a time.
Set at the beginning of one of the most fertile periods of Steven Spielberg's work (Minority Report and Catch Me If You Can will follow barely a year later late), A. I. Artificial Intelligence remains one of its author's most special films. Rejected and misunderstood on its release, it will gradually acquire an aura of a cursed film that suits it.
Taken from Brian Aldiss' 1969 sci-fi novel Supertoys Last All Summer, the script was originally set to be adapted in the 90s by none other than Stanley Kubrick. But the digital special effects of the time not making it possible to fully recreate a robot with a human face, the project had remained in the limbo of the "development hell" in which many projects still languish which will never see the light of day. In this case, Steven Spielberg is interested, the latter seeing it as an opportunity to touch again on a genre that he had successfully invested in the past, but also and above all the opportunity to further dig his furrow as an author. passionate about tales in general and Pinocchio in particular. After all, A. I. is it not a futuristic adaptation of Carlo Collodi's tale?
In 1995, Stanley Kubrick then officially passed the torch to Spielberg, who would have to wait another six years for the project to finally see the light of day. Six years that will have allowed Spielberg to mature his film and the digital (signed ILM) and mechanical (due to the immense Stan Winston) special effects to progress. And that expectation has been rewarded, as A.I. is arguably one of the most ambitious and daring films of Steven Spielberg's career. Many critics had however seen it as a schizophrenic work, torn between "Kubrickian" moments (which would therefore be the best) and other more "Spielbergian" moments (necessarily the least good). But the film is much more complex than that, each of its different parts (so distinct that they could compose a film in their own right) being both “Kubrickian” and “Spielbergian”.
The first part, which consists of the arrival of David and his integration into his new family, has an almost dreamy sweetness, helped in this by the diaphanous photography of Janusz Kaminski and the remarkable interpretation of a Haley Joel Osment fresh out of the Sixth Sense. The young actor somehow manages to breathe so much humanity into his mechanical character that the spectator finds his eyes completely fogged up by one of the most stunning sequences in the film, and probably in all of Steven's cinema. Spielberg.
This is where the film suddenly changes gears and turns to the adventurous quest, David setting off in search of the Blue Fairy from Pinocchio's tale, the one who can realize his dream of becoming human in order to win love from his mother. Accompanied by Gigolo Joe (Jude Law, who lends his fine features and slender body to this lecherous version of Jiminy Cricket), David then finds himself confronted with the atrocity of the real world, the "mechas" being considered as parasites by a part of society. The opportunity for Spielberg to show nothing less than a mechanical holocaust: mass graves, humiliations and torture in public places. Images of extreme violence, without the slightest drop of blood being shed.
But it is in the last part that the heart of the film is found and what makes it so special. Of infinite sadness and melancholy, the last twenty minutes consist of a slow and beautiful journey to the beyond, an enchanted and ephemeral parenthesis mixing poetry, metaphysics... and death.
It is also time to dispel the doubt on one of the most stubborn misunderstandings about the film, and which will have earned Spielberg the most unfair criticism: the happy ending is not "happy ". On the surface, everything seems to end in a positive, peaceful way. But it's a trompe-l'oeil appeasement that, under the guise of happy reunions and declarations of love, hides a deep meaning that is nothing short of overwhelming. Because the most beautiful day of David's life is undoubtedly also his last.
Spielberg orchestrates it all in a great artistic gesture where visual richness is perfectly combined (difficult to overcome the game of mirrors between the appearance of the "super mechas" and the first appearance of David in the film) and the musical richness, thanks to John Williams who signs here one of his most beautiful compositions, subtly mixing the coldness of the synthetic instruments with the warmth of the choirs and the symphony orchestra.
A. I. Artificial Intelligence is therefore a film-world, an open door to an infinite imagination, an initiatory tale on the quest for identity, but also a great science fiction film containing some of the most astounding things cinema has ever offered (it's hard to forget that Manhattan under water). A masterpiece that will have needed fifteen years to finally be recognized at its fair value. Stanley Kubrick would have had much to be proud of.
The sheet
A. I. Artificial IntelligenceDirected by Steven SpielbergWith Haley Joel Osment, Jude Law, Frances O’Connor…United States – Science fiction, adventure, dramaTheatrically released: October 24, 2001Duration: 140 min
Categories2001Fantasy / SFDay of WorshipFlo's libraryMade in the USTaggedA. I.Haley Joel Osmentartificial intelligencejude lawPinocchiosteven spielberg
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