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iammyownrushmore  ·  3580 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Pubski: February 4, 2015

I think there is some confusion as to the role of film here, though this is not intended to sway you from your opinion about the underlying conceptual matter, but to share why I think this is a very good film.

Your criticisms regarding race are absolutely apt, but I think you have to bear in mind that the "problems" addressed in Her are typically considered "white people problems" as most of us aren't still worrying about getting shot during a traffic stop, so we get to get to focus (culturally, socially) on frying the fish of " are we alienated from one another?". This does not mean that no one who is a minority can have the same concerns or be interested in the same topics, and I do not stand by what I said as a thorough analysis, merely to extrapolate the following: There's only so many dynamics to cover in one story, and while the complete absence of minorities in the story is absolutely an issue, a white, male director speaking on behalf of minorities about the racial implications of technological infiltration in our personal lives may be outside of his purview. Not to say that this shouldn't be discussed, but no one should accept Spike Jonze as the man for the job.

1) I was bothered by the fact that so few people saw this as an issue in the film's world, but maybe it was more a criticism of permissiveness and the occlusion of opinions within "technologically literate" and "progress uber alles" crowds. If you have someone who is included in this worldview dealing with the interior turmoil of emotionally handling a relationship with a technology-based entity and coming to a conclusion based on their experience rather than some verbose philosophical pandering, you come to a shared experience that can be shown through film. In opposition you just have someone nay-saying, and then end with an "I told you so". I think of this more as a narrative-driving tool than an actual accurate depiction.

2) The AI comes to grips with it's own conclusions about what drives meaning in it's own life, and plays as more of a metaphor for the separate metaphysical basis of reality through the lens of an emotional tale. If he generates an AI for this story, and the AI goes, immediately: "I don't give a shit how pretty you are Jaoquin, I'm gonna go make a lot of money/feed the homeless," this doesn't serve to help drive home the implicit differences of underlying moral groundwork for which two different types of consciousness approach existence. Your premisealso assumes that our moral grounds would be imperative for a technologically-based AI. This is a story, not a sci-fied notumentary.

3) I appreciate more so the mise en scene this environment allows for, rather than the pragmatic considerations. He could easily work from home in his PJs. Why doesn't he? To show the subtle variations in a context which can be captured on film that the film's aesthetic mirrors the modern individual emotionally.

4) Yes.

5) agreed. completely.

6) Every story is a previous story re-told in a new lens (if it's done right) and Her does it right. HOWEVER,

    People are too obsessed with technology

is not appropriate in this sense. Her is trying to discuss how this line could be blurred, and taking the notion of a sentient AI seriously without making it scary or an emotional black box, and what exactly makes a human human and how a separate conscious entity that does not mirror our own metaphysical understanding of the world around us can never fulfill this basic desire to be understood, nor can we for it. It deserves more consideration than you are allowing here. I believe this film has a far more mature take on this concept than you initially gathered, and I would consider re-watching it with a more charitable frame of mind.

You are a little too caught up in the pragmatic considerations the director has to make, this blocks you from seeing these choices as supporting the underlying thematic elements of the movie. Film is not about making a documentation of a fake world, it is about translating issues to a world in film.

Ultraviolet wavelengths exist, but we cannot see them. To understand in a context that we can visual and process heuristically, here is the face of a person imaged using photography that can capture UV:

We cannot see UV, ever, period, in the context in which it exists. We use an abstract concept (UV light, existential philosophy as applied to an AI), apply it to a familiar setting (a human face, a traditional emotional tale), and skew it into a context that we can understand, in this case, both using film as the medium for translating the un-seeable into a context that works for us.

Does that makes sense?