Sunday Short Theatre – The Desert (2021)
Humanity versus the machine, we’ve seen many films on life living robots. Many they are the enemy, other films we abuse them to our own selfish needs. What if there is a time, robots are the only things left to roam the planet? This week’s Sunday Short Theatre, Michael Dockery‘s The Desert could easily be straight from the pages of a JG Ballard novel.
The world maybe still deep in the clutches of a pandemic, this animated short won’t be a post apocalyptic story, with scientist trying to find a cure or society destroyed weapons of destruction. The survivors of this 5 minute animated short aren’t organic trying to survive the aftermath of some event, but what’s been left behind…the robots.
The world is a post human world as we’ve been wiped out, what do those robot do, what purpose do they have? They wonder our desolate planet with no reason to do so, will they develop a sense of freedom or simply just stop?
Dockery’s film is the end product of 3 years of artwork which was influenced by “the literary dystopias of J.G. Ballard, the concept art of Ralph McQuarrie”. It’s not an reinvention of the directors inspirations, he wears those inspirations on his sleeve. He’s exploring his “own broad cynicism of modern A.I. discourse and fandom”. Thought provoking narrative which is an a way an open book case, that “draw their own conclusions as they contemplate their own relationship with the themes of artificial intelligence, spirituality and the nature of morality”.
In a Post-Human world, humankind’s creations are left to wander in desolation; detached from humanity, meaning and purpose.
Source: Short Of The Week
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