I had the honor of attending a 24 hour Sci-Fi film marathon in Boston last year. One of the flicks that we got a peek at about half way through the day was "Robot Stories", written and Directed by Greg Pak. This was Mr. Pak's first feature and I have to say that I was solidly impressed.
Robot Stories is a collection of four vignettes concerning, well, robots. Strangely though, that's not what the stories are really about. Like the best science fiction, Pak has taken elements of the fantastic and wrapped up some wonderfully human tales. I hate reading reviews that give away entire plots so I'll just take a moment to paint some broad strokes here to hopefully whet the appetite.
The first tale concerns a couple going through the process of adopting a child. Before they can qualify for a human baby they must spend thirty days caring for a robot child to show that they are capable of providing a loving home. The robot looks like a strange combination between one of those Virtual Pets that were popular a few years back and a giant egg. I'm willing to bet that a part of the inspiration for the design of the robo-kid came from one of those strange assignments that most of us had in high school where we had to take care of an egg for a week. At first things seem to go pretty well, but once the prospective mother is left alone with the virtual infant, hilarity, a hint of horror and some amazingly powerful emotional breakthroughs ensue. As a parent who was going through the adoption process and was then blessed with twins I can vouch for the authenticity of everything faced by the couple here. A fun, but very powerful story.
The second chapter has no "real" robots at all. It is a very moving tale of a mother who discovers the son she never really knew or understood through the Micronaut toys he leaves behind. (Apparently they were not able to get permission to say "Micronaut" on screen and had to substitute "Micro-Bots". Silly, but true.) This story provides one of the most amazing acting jobs I have ever seen. Wai Ching Ho gives a magnificent performance as the mother who only really gets to know her son at the last possible minute. Hardcore geeks and nerds around me were visibly weepy toward the end. Since this film has been in circulation on the indie scene for a couple of years I am sure that it no longer qualifies for any major awards and that's a shame. The writing and acting in this and the last chapters are among the finest I have seen in any film.
Chapter three is a lighter piece that poses the age old question of how regular folks will react with a "synthetic human" when they are first exposed to one. In this case we are treated to the writer/director playing Archie, the first i-worker in a software development company. Pak does a passable job as the robot who longs to interact with his coworkers and raises some interesting questions, but this is definitely the lightest segment of the lot. That's fine though. The audience gets to relax and chuckle a bit after two fairly emotionally powerful segments. Think of this story as bit of mental sorbet.
The final piece is another deeper tale that has Sab Shimono contemplating the nature of immortality when he finds out that he is going to die, but is afforded the opportunity to have his consciousness duplicated onto a mainframe computer and "live" forever. He is an artist and will be able to continue to create, spend time with his adult son and do everything that his body has prevented him from attempting for the past seven or so decades. It would seem particularly enticing seeing as his wife has already gone through the process, died and yet is still able to even share his bed through the wonders of modern technology. This one will keep the old cerebellum buzzing for hours afterwards and will undoubtedly spawn some very interesting conversations over coffee or pizza after each show.
After the film Greg Pak came out and answered questions for thirty minutes or so and handed out some swag to folks who were able to answer trivia questions about the film. I got to ask about where he was able to cut corners on the budget and still generate such a good-looking flick. If you get to a screening and he is available afterwards, corner this man and get him to relay some of the stories about how he paid his animator, how they were able to build a working robot from bowls bought at a kitchen store and what pieces of robot makeup came from the foot care aisle at a local pharmacy.
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