so… bored last night after a long bike ride, i dropped by blockbuster and bought a copy of A.I. on DVD. Remembering that I, unlike everybody else i knew, really really liked it the first time, and found the left field ending merely curious and strange, whereas most folks found it downright deadly.
Watched the whole thing again, and i have to admit, i was totally wrong. Not only was the ending NOT left field, it was vital to telling to story, and, while a bit wobbly in execution perhaps, was structurally beautiful.
It actually made me well up this time. The science is hokey, but don’t look at it as science, look at it as magic. Look at it as myth. I can’t imagine the movie without it. I think perhaps the first time, i was thrown off by the pacing, but this time, I realized the movie works as three distinct acts.
Act one is david’s birth as a robot, his birth as a soul, and his abandonment by his mother, in the woods. It should be noted, probably, that the (evil) step brother engineers his fate, in a bid for thier mothers undivided love.
Act III is his Quest, with the Moon Balloon, his new found friend Joe (who is, at different times, the lion, the tin man AND the scarecrow, who finds his courage, his heart, and his mind during this quest), the city on the edge of the world (Oz), where he learns that there is no blue fairy, and that his real creator (man behind the curtain), his real father, was simply a quiet, lonely man who had lost his real son and created david, and so many more just like him in his dead son’s image.
Believing that his dream is gone forever, that he will never be a real boy, seeing the insides of his “brother” robot, whom he has jealously smashed to bits, he casts himself off a cliff into the sea, where rather than dying, he is carried by a school of fish to the blue fairy, only to be yanked away by Joe, till he narrowly escapes his hunters a final time and returns to the blue fairy, and is trapped by the ferris wheel, repeating, desperately, over and over… “please make me a real boy…”
ACT III: David is frozen, sleeping-beauty like for 2000 years while the earth freezes and everything in the world he knew froze… Explorers find david and with a touch, bring him back to life. They tell him that he is thier ancestor, and that they have been searching for ages for a connection to humans, thier creators- in a sense- thier “god”, and that david was, in a very real sense, thier Adam, the first feeling robot, and the one who was cast out, abandoned by god and man (humans and robots), for supposing himself capable of that most elusive and "god"like of attributes- the capacity to love, and the need to be loved in return. An interesting spin on “original sin”, no? Original love?
Sadly, they tell him that his one dream, to be loved by his mother, is the only thing which they cannot give him, as they know hoew to reanimate the dead, but not without a remnant. At which point we discover that our faithful sidekick Teddy, ever devoted, has kept a lock of David’s mothers hair, which david had once been tricked (by his evil-step brother) into cutting from his mother while she slept.
So he CAN have her back, but only for one day, which turns into the happiest day of his life: no evil stepbrother, no jealous husband, just david and mother, ;aughing and playing, finally after 2000 years, david gets a birthday cake, and when he tries to blow out the candles, he nearly blows out the last one before realizing that his only wish in life- to be loved- has already come true. Finally, as the sun sets, mother becomes tired and david puts her to bed, knowing as they say goodbye, she will never wake. She falls asleep, and david, holding her hand, dies next to her.
its perfect. the movie still has its flaws. But this time i found them mostly in the first act. Too much of is told without david, spoiling what might have been a really wonderful first person telling of the story. (afterall, the framing device for the first two acts is the voice of the lead robot, who really should only know what david knows about the story). Its also a little too heavy on contemporary science fiction motifs, which i think might also be why the third act felt wrong at first.
So this time I loved it, and i truly hope that it lives to be remebered as a masterpiece.
CJ
