A Bitter Message of Hopeless Grief

In a subterranean dungeon sealed off from daylight, anthropomorphic robots perform scenarios of subjugation and torture with relish. Jon Reiss’ film is a cinematic nightmare that is as disturbing as it is fascinating; in it, he unleashes an inexorable cycle of dehumanised greed for power and gazes prophetically into the depths of the psychology of machines. This work of science fiction was made in collaboration with creative technicians from the Californian machine performance art group, ‘Survival Research Laboratories’ (SRL). (Berlinale)