AUTÓMATA (film, 2014)

AUTÓMATA (2014). Gabe Ibáñez, dir., co-script, with Igor Legarreta and Javier Sánchez Donate. Antonio Banderas, Dylan McDermott, Melanie Griffith (voice), Brigitte Hjort Sørensen, featured players. Spain/Bulgaria: Green Moon, Nu Boyana Viburno (prod.) / Millennium Entertainment (US theatrical dist.), 2014/2015.

IMDb storyline: "Jacq Vaucan is an insurance agent of ROC robotics corporation who investigates cases of robots violating their primary protocols against altering themselves. What he discovers will have profound consequences for the future of humanity" in a fairly near, dystopic future (post-2044) following solar flares rendering the Earth's surface radioactive and increasingly desert.[1] See and listen to for a variation on the theme of Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics (two protocols here), robot servitude and possible rebellion, robot agency — and the word "clockmaster" (IMDb synopsis) or "clocksmith" (Wikipedia entry) for someone who "illegally modifies robots" to avoid the second protocol, against self-repair, though the first protocol — against harming humans — seems to hold.[2] Note also a nuclear battery as a plot element and the building of what the Wikipedia summary calls "an insect-like robot that moves with the intelligent grace of a living being," who turns out quite positive, reversing the more common negative image in fiction and film of insectoid robots, and robot-like "Bugs."

Rich Erlich, one of the initial compilers, notes that the word in the copy he saw and listened to is "clocksmith" and would classify the film as a relatively low-budget (IMDb estimate, US$7M), SF, post-disaster, film-noir art film of interest for its handling in that hybrid mode of traditional robotic themes, with delicate invoking of our sympathy for the robots, especially the "clunkers" and Cleo (the sex-'bot), balanced against the threat of the robots as, like children — and children/families are a motif here — our successors (and superiors).[3] Cf. and contrast A.I. and the works cross-listed there. Note the Cleo variety well for gender issues: with "her" we see the breakthrough in robotic AI, consciousness, and evolution.

(RDE, 26/XII/14, 9Jan15)