We’ve gotten used to the notion of ‘Big Brother is watching you’ over the years, but do we stop to think how deep this surveillance goes? This documentary, narrated in sobering tones and accompanied with dizzying visuals goes someway to make us woke.
Often terrifying, the future (and indeed, past and present) that’s described here is enough to make anyone think about the world we live in. The way religion, governments, companies, and more manipulate and control us goes much deeper than even the savviest person can imagine, and the narration takes great pains to attempt to raise our awareness.
“If you overcome fear you will realise that life that your life has been spent in the web created from our own emotions,” we’re told. Which is, of course, easier said than done. From the dawn of time, we’ve been manipulated and moulded into something that perhaps we wouldn’t have naturally been.
Often, the visuals remind the viewer of Godfrey Reggio’s Koyaanisqatsi, although it’s communicated with a much heavier hand and accompanied with annoying music.
Whether you buy into the message or not, it’s hard to argue with some of the points raised. We’ve created a society in which water is no longer a free commodity, yet we buy into services that we don’t need.
With the increasing advent of VR (as depicted often in the visuals), the fear that we will eventually lose all semblance of the ‘self’, is a major point the film attempts to make. The ideas are valid, particularly when it goes into how children are brought up with computers, playing war games that are ‘funded by governments’ and the lack of any learned interpersonal skills – or indeed any idea of their own thoughts.
Fortunately, An Artificial Reality doesn’t go too far down the rabbit hole of crazy conspiracy theories, instead offering up a steady stream of scenarios that are actually hard to argue with. “The technology we’ve created with all good intentions is now driving us and we have become extensions of the machine itself” is, for example, one of the ominous deductions given us. If you fancy taking your mind into some genuinely scary places, you can do worse than giving this your time.
AN ARTIFICIAL REALITY / CERT: E / DIRECTOR: PHILIP GARDNER / STARRING: RAZOR KEEVES, SIMON OLIVER / RELEASE DATE: SEPTEMBER 14TH
