I went to see this Spielberg’s film twice at the theater when it
came out, back in what I consider the happiest years of my childhood,
right before beginning high school. I would go to the movies every
weekend with my family and friends and had a real blast. I have great
memories of watching movies such as Heartbreakers, Scream
3, Urban Legends: Final Cut, The Cell, Scary
Movie, and Hollow Man,
among many others.
Probably not the films that would make it on my top list right
now,
but good
enough for me
back then
to make me wish I could get to do similar ones in
the future. I would
dream about becoming a film director and making it out of my hometown
someday, so then maybe I could get recognition as an artist, maybe I
could be the writer of my own story and make a difference, in
contrast to the people around me, who I perceived were mostly
interested in football and raising a family.
As a
person who felt like an outsider most of the time, I remember being
deeply and emotionally touched by the story of the main character of
this movie. I hadn’t found out about my sexuality back then yet and
less so was I aware of having schizophrenia, but I guess that’s
what made me relate so much to the protagonist. An almost
human-looking robot kid living in a world where androids are being
hunted down by mankind. He’s too artificial for humans and even
finding sympathy in his own kind, he feels different. I’ve never
had any self-judgments about being gay, I had to hide my sexual
orientation only because I was bullied in a very small town, and yet
not being able to remain out of the closet was almost killing me on
the inside because I really needed the explore that part of myself.
But having schizophrenia is a completely different thing. There’s
so much stigma and lack of knowledge that it gets scary sometimes.
When I had my first episode I never thought I could naturally speak
about it like I do now cause I didn’t even know what the illness
was exactly so, despite the whole self-acceptance work that I’ve
been doing during the last few years, being labeled as both gay and
schizophrenic makes me feel like I’m wandering no man’s land
sometimes, in a world where being human is seemingly the less
important category to be labeled as.
But
getting back again to other specifics of the movie, what I really
liked about it and still do now as well is the cinematography and the
artistic direction. The cinematographer, who’s worked in most of
Spielberg’s films, has made a great job with the use of light
and color, in order to create extremely beautiful frames that
accompany the characters in their emotional journey. Another great
aspect to mention is the excellent music made by John Williams, which
was nominated for the Oscars in the best original score category. So
delicate and epic at the same time. Generally speaking, the whole
movie denotes a very strong feeling of melancholia, so that’s why I
chose the song Nothing Pure In Me to accompany the video
tribute, cause it reminiscences its spirit a lot.
THESIS
To
me, this movie is clearly a critic of the human race that, as opposed to the
machines, is capable by nature of such cruelty and harm they almost
deserve extinction. The whole movie navigates this idea that the
androids are purer and less toxic than humans.
ROBOTS
ARE PURER THAN MANKIND.
