The generation of podsultra-contemporary film
With his third feature film The generation of podspresented in the Premieres section on 49th Deauville American Film Festival, Sophie Barthes enters familiar territory. In fact, his two previous creations also passed by the coasts of Normandy, Souls in stock in 2009 and Madame Bovary in 2015. Representative of an elegant auteur cinema and very much in touch with contemporary themes, it is in this genre that The generation of pods. A romantic comedy with a dramatic accent, developed in a very near future where artificial intelligence will be omnipotent.
The story of The generation of pods is that of Rachel and Alvy, a New York couple planning to have a child. But both do not have the same approach to the project. Rachel, an executive at a marketing agency where artificial intelligence is the prime tool, is offered a position at the Womb Center, a company that offers IVF and a development of the fetus in a “pod”, an “egg” composed of cutting-edge technologies. Without telling Alvy, a botanist and nature lover, and very critical of the development of artificial intelligence…
Refined aesthetics and inspired casting
Worn by Emilia Clarke and Chiwetel Ejiofor, both perfect for this couple, The generation of pods it seemsAfter Yang. That is to say that this future has something familiar, logically anticipated, while still holding some surprises. Artificial intelligence has thus become highly personalized, at home and at work, sensing and anticipating the wants and needs of human beings. Nature has become an archaism and city dwellers no longer go there, having the opportunity to spend time in “natural pods”, which reproduce the sensations. Food is produced by 3D printers. The world of The generation of pods it is clean, tidy, clear.
Technology seems to have made everything easy, effortless, even procreation. To avoid the pangs of pregnancy, formulate a political claim moreover, that of women’s freedom to use their own uterus as they see fit, for which “artificial” births are on the rise.
The star of game of Thrones and her male partner brilliantly develop the – light – antagonism that leads them to interpret the writing of Sophie Barthes. We laugh like this several times, especially when Alvy agrees to go to a therapeutic AI, represented by a giant eye surrounded by flowers. We also laugh at their first hesitations in handling the “pod”, in not dropping it, in hitting it when carrying it. We laugh, and we are particularly challenged by the question asked by the director: Are we comfortable trusting so much life to technology?
Think, if you don’t feel
The generation of pods tends intensely towards a similar work His by Spike Jonze. Central is the theme of technology and the relationship that man establishes with it. It is shown, it is said without being too significant, but it seems to capture all the effort of Sophie Barthes, who partially forgets her emotions. Indeed, on so carnal a subject, The generation of pods lack of feeling. As if speech were too important to be suggested by image and sound, the film lacks flesh, joy and sorrows.
In reality, Alvy’s concern is more political and collective than instinctive and personal. Rachele’s desire for motherhood does not appear as “natural”, profound, but rather as a conventional stage of her personal fulfilment, it would appear almost “artificial”. If the characters are seriously developed, they paradoxically lack humanity.
A lack that translates into the absence of cries, of drama. Or, conversely, joys and moments of intoxication. Does the “pod” work properly? Will the baby be “normal”? For a brief moment, a character evokes the fact children born from a “pod” do not dream… The idea is brilliant, terrifying. But sadly it didn’t follow up.
Despite its very beautiful production and careful interpretations – we also remember Rosalie Craig, chilling and very funny director of the Center de l’uterus -, The generation of pods he focuses too much on his opposition conceptual between the natural and the artificial. A ideal dialectic for dealing with the human conditionbut which loses much of its force if it is not accompanied by sensations, real scenarios of the drama that must necessarily be staged.
Source: Cine Serie
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