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| Ex Machina (2014) |
Now this isn't your typical blockbuster film. There are really only three main characters in the film and although mise en scene really adds to the whole aura of the film, what really impressed me the most was its score and the story.
The Score.
Composed by Geoff Barrow and Ben Salisbury. Now what really impresses me about a lot of great film scores isn't the complexity of the pieces. What really catches my ear is the how the piece complements the the tone and mood of the film while maintaining a subtle role. And if you really pay attention many of the sounds you hear could easily be created by someone working on their own DAW at home. I'll say it again, its not the complexity, but the simplicity that makes many of these scores great. It just takes one theme to follow and you just keep developing it until you envelope the entire story that you're trying to tell. And what Barrow and Salisbury did was a brilliant manipulation of human emotion without our awareness similar to the kind of psychological manipulation occurring to the characters in the movie itself. And to finish, bringing out that crescendo in the climax, saving it until that very moment really shows the power that restraint can build until you're ready to release that intense moment through raw power in the music.
The Story.
Now this isn't a story that's written from beginning to end. It's nonlinear, and that's what makes this movie such a brilliant piece regardless of personal opinion. Think of movies like Inception and Arrival. Now I know what you're thinking. You think I'm applauding the fact that the movie had a twist in it which related back to some detail in the beginning. Now that's partially true. But the truth is there are plenty of movies that attempt to do this, attempt to create a revolutionary plot twist by picking out some detail they delivered in the beginning of the script and using it as the foundation for the turn in the story later on. What you'll notice about these movies is that the seem to carry the same vibe as that cliche story path that you've at least heard of before. Either everything turns out to be a dream, or everything is the opposite of what you expect. Just think of productions like Stranger Things season 3 or the Fate of the Furious. The former starts off with how the Russians are interfering with everything and THEN builds on that plotline, supplementing details to support it after the fact. Same thing in the Fate of the Furious. Dominic is not who people think him to be. Except that notion has no basis on what the francise has built on the past couple of years. Instead a history is supplemented to support this change in his guiding morals.
What allowed me to enjoy Ex Machina was the fact that the story is interlaced within itself so that there aren't obvious plotholes and twists in the plot are purposeful and are based off of existing details which were clearly foreshadowing those turns in the story when reviewing them in hindsight. A genuinely good plot twist is not completely unexpected. A good plot twist confirms the very subtle doubts that you had since the beginning of the film but distorts them ever so slightly that it leaves you with more doubts than before, but still manages to answer your initial doubt. So I encourage you to watch this movie and comment below on your thoughts. Good night folks.
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