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Somewhere in the heart of Japan, within the oasis of snow blanketing a forest, a missing operations base is set for reboot by George (Theo James). This ice fortress is as welcoming as a parka on Mercury, cold as the weather outside. Inside it is an unfeeling concrete palace, like a spaceship that has land on Earth. Whist out for a jog, George checks in with the two robots he had built for companionship and his rude boss, Simone (Rhona Mitra). At least he finds a little solace in not talking to his dead wife, Julie (Stacy Martin), for a few more hours. She inhabits the Archive, a monolith turned casket that help the mourned converse with the living during their last few moments. Unfortunately, time is running out, and she will go mute forever. During his spare time, George is tirelessly working on his third prototype to house her personality in a bid at resurrection. Alas, one of the other robots feels the need to express jealousy, and the suspicious company behind the Archive does not seem thrilled about George’s data breach to construct his version of Frankenstein’s monster.
Gavin Rothery’s “Archive” is, to say the least, unrefined and complicated. So many cliches, so many plot twists.
To achieve this, the story attempts to instigate conflict through the use of sexist tropes that dampens the overall narrative. While, it does manage to resolve them during the last few minutes, and it is those final few minutes that altered my viewpoint. The question each viewer is forced to ask themselves is whether they can stomach sitting through all that male fantasy in order to appreciate the final twist.
Rothery, originally from the art department and making her debut as a writer/director, takes inspiration from various sci-fi movies to depict the “Archive” as a forlorn one. It is also very much evident in movies such as “2001: A Space Odyssey” or “Blade Runner” with American characters set against the backdrop of a Japanese restaurant and huge light-up adverts. Not to mention some robot designs from “Star Wars” and “Metropolis” and the narrative mashup of “Ex Machina” meets “Solaris” blend American characters in a Japanese restaurant with adscape. The themes of those latter two movies are certainly prevalent.
In a way, George is like a deranged scientist attempting to bring the dead back to life utilizing science and technology like in ‘Ex Machina’ where he is working towards idiom companions which he calls prototypes. The grief wave he goes through, ghost sightings of his wife, and the movie’s looming aura of loneliness is incredibly similar to the Russian classic, ‘Solaris.’
This is where it gets a bit unsettling. In terms of companionship, George is mostly alone, except for the three robotic prototypes he made which are designed to save his wife’s essence. In prototype three, he is left with a lumbering gentle giant who is similar to a toddler that can’t speak. His first prototype resembles the ASIMO robot, and in turns into the second one, who is a petulant child when he proceeds towards creating a more humanoid version, which, as expected, is slimmer, skinnier, and more conventionally attractive. There is a moment which George explains: it is the third prototype’s brain power that influences him to believe she is the one to contain his wife’s essence. But it does seem like there is a flaw which alludes to questionable design choices since models like the one they are looking for would be beneficial.
Other gaps in the script are just as confusing, such as this brilliant line an actor has to deliver: “I’m a risk assessor. I assess risks,” but in a very serious tone.
Not to mention that George tries to fuse them all together as sisters to try and get them to rally and retrieve Jules. They each seem to have some portion of his wife in them, so I suppose that means they are sister wives. That’s certainly strange. And the moment the second prototype attempts to sabotage the entire experiment out of HAL 9000-levels of jealousy? Boring. Can we not? It is beside the point of how this Archive business was apparently done to her without permission or what it could mean to subdue a sentient feeling robot (hi, “Blade Runner”!) with dreams of its own forever. It is more a reaction to feeling jealous and insecure, and ready to wipe out her competition, whatever that actually meant. Some women have to tear each other down or lose themselves to prove their love, right to the point of self-destruction.
Rothery somehow flips all of this over on its head in the last few minutes into something that left me utterly speechless.
Rothery, together with cinematographer Laurie Rose, achieves a startlingly isolated and raw look without completely washing out the color of the screen. The art and production designs further sell this ambitious film’s illusions, together with the red, yellow, and white lights of the facility. One impressive section within the film is the rather cool, albeit a little unsettling, montage where George brings the robot to life. Central to the movie and the character of George, James plays him with complete rigidness in present day, making the flashback memories of his wife a mandatory addition. Forcing a rather stoic character to be anything but quiet, adding some emotion to a man who’s lost so much that he’ll do anything even create a jealous frankenstein’s monster to get her back.
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