If you want to discuss contemporary sci-fi touchstones of the last 15 years, probably somewhere near the epicenter of that conversation has to be writer/director Alex Garland. The writer behind “28 Days Later,” “Sunshine,” and “Never Let Me Go,” Garland has carved out a niche of intelligent thrillers with thoughtful yet visceral edges and made his directorial debut earlier this year with the well-received “Ex Machina.”
One of the biggest indie hits of the year and A24’s highest grossing film to date, “Ex Machina” continues Garland’s moody exploration of dystopian ideas, and how they affect mankind. Featuring a trio of up-and-coming stars —Oscar Issac, Domnhall Gleeson (both of whom are in the upcoming “Star Wars: The Force Awakens“) and Alicia Vikander— “Ex Machina” plays with the notions of empathy via artificial intelligence in a futuristic milieu (our review). More specifically, “Ex Machina” centers on a gifted computer programmer (Gleeson) who wins a lottery for a one week getaway retreat with the reclusive CEO of the world’s leading Internet search company (Isaac). Upon his arrival however, the programmer is surprised to find an eccentric, heavy-drinking mad scientist who is working on his pride and joy experiment: a sentient A.I. robot named Ava (Vikander). Set in mostly one location, “Ex Machina” is like a three-pronged chamber drama and a claustrophobic thriller that subverts sci-fi tropes and expectations at every turn (and it’s on our Best Films Of The 2015 So Far list).
This conversation came on the heels of a post-screening Q&A I moderated this spring with Garland about “Ex Machina” where the audience reaction and various interpretations of the vaguely open-ended conclusion and the character motivations was fascinating. My freeform chat with the self-critical filmmaker led our talk to destinations about his career, his complicated feelings on his past work and much more. “Ex Machina” is out on DVD/Blu-Ray today.
It’s really interesting to see how the audience responds to the ending of “Ex Machina,” and how your intent butts against their subjectivity. In Q&As, it’s fascinating to see where the audience empathy lies — it’s almost like a sociological experiment.
Absolutely. I think one of the things I’m really learning about this film, and I think because it doesn’t signpost the movie’s overall intent— where it stands on a lot of the characters and their actions— is how open to a subjective response it is. It’s just wide open.
The more interaction I’ve experienced with audiences the more I realize how little a film has to do with filmmaker intention and how much of that is do with what the people are bringing to the film personally. In a very loose way, for years, I’ve quantified [the movie experience] as a fifty-fifty split. The creator brings fifty percent to it and then the audience experience is fifty percent and that melds to become the outcome of how they absorb the movie. But it’s not fucking fifty-fifty, it’s eighty-twenty in subjective favor.
READ MORE: Alex Garland Talks Lo-Fi Approach To ‘Ex Machina,’ Auteur Theory, And Much More
Could it be because of the movie’s omniscient point of view?
No. It’s not. It’s just us. It’s more about us than the film. We’re subjective creatures, and there’s a terrific arrogance in thinking that you can spell out what people will think about a narrative.
“I think the convention of sequels: expecting and needing more of a narrative has built-in issues. Because most stuff doesn’t stand up to being repeated.”
You can’t. I think about my entire film watching and reading life and I’ve spent it discussing and disagreeing with friends about what a book or film is about. So why should I be surprised? I’m not.
I read where you said there would be no sequel to “Ex Machina.” I kind of chuckled, and thought “Well, of course there isn’t. Did you not see the movie?” It’s not that kind of film.
True, but I think there’s two things. One is that the film does end with an ellipses. Sort of a dot, dot, dot.
Sure, but that’s regular ambiguity, maybe not unlike the ending to “Inception” or any number of classic sci-fi or dystopian films.
Well, I think for some people, the ending proposes the idea. That it may, in fact, suggest that maybe a sequel has been intended.
The other thing is now, for a long time, since the early ’80s, the relationship between a film working in some criteria and then making another version of it, has become ingrained in us. Like a paradigm. It’s just what you’re supposed to do. It must be what you want to do. How could you not want to do that? “Parallax View 2”! You think, “What? What are you talking about?”