Friday 6 November 2015

Her

Her is a very interesting film in photographic and design terms (the design of OS1 and the constant use of red and vanilla colours in photography) but over all in psychological ones.

I really struggled to know if the frivolisation of feelings through technology was actually that or something not cold at all. The film proves love is actually something more internal and subjective, and does not really relies on someone else. This is very well represented when he fantasises in his privacy without risks. Essentially Theo is in love with an idea, a fantasy of exactly what he wants, and this isolates him through technology, a problem we are living nowadays with social networks and ideal relationships.

That also made me wonder: Do we really need each other to be happy? Or an artificial company is just sufficient to feed that part of us that needs to socialise? Thinking about it there is actually not much difference between OS1 and someone you love but you are away from. It is actually even better, because it knows everything about you in real time. As human beings we need proximity and being cared. And then Theo realises that there is just one life to enjoy to be thinking about the realness of a feeling. After all, fiction also makes us feel love and hate.

The film represents the usual Shakespearian circumstantial and perfect love for everyone of us rather than focusing on how to learn to love someone else for what they are, which is a wide extended message I am personally against of. 

I also appreciated the subtle contradiction of the extended belief loving someone because of who that person is instead of what he or she is becomes meaningless when what (or who) you love does not have a body.

Other miscellaneous details I would highlight from the film are the following:

- Jealousness is a real issue in our western society that a computer program cannot deal with.

- How we work for each other as society with no projections. I felt this when he was playing a video game and thinking about the main characters' jobs.

- I felt identified when Theo mentioned that he had the feeling that he was not going to feel anything new in his life again. This is always wrong and at some point we think this.

- There are a couple of feminist gags. The first one is when Theo's colleague (a clear not very smart guy) says Theo is half women. Theo feels good about it, and the partner highlights "It's a compliment", like a clarification was actually needed. This little scene separates both characters and let us know more about the kind of person Theo is and how he sees women. Although I felt surprised when the second gag came in, when the video game his friend is designing, called 'Perfect Mom' is highly male chauvinist and he seems to enjoy it. This might wanted to represent the duality of our thoughts regarding this issue, which is applicable to those fields we choose instead to every one of them.




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