Advantageous

Wow. I had no idea what to expect when I put this on, but it blew me completely away. I am certain that the pacing may alienate many a viewer expecting every, "good" sci-fi to be filled mainly with spectacular future-tech fighting, and maybe scratch the surface of big questions in a futuristic society.

Advantageous do approach the latter, although nuanced, and more subtle than most films in this genre do. First and foremost, Advantageous focus on what defines the parent/child-relationship through portrayals of emotions and behavior that feel real. Not overly dramatic, not "scripted" like in most movies, but like the breathing dialectics of how those mechanics do work in real life.

The stage is set in a dystopian future. There are elements of class conflict, and philosophical approaches to defining the Id and the Ego. But these are still all secondary to the parental element. I didn't feel that the topics were rushed, too complicated, pretentious or superficially presented in any way, but that might be a matter of my approach as a viewer; my focus on the movie while it ran, and my general interest in the subjects in my own life.

I also found Advantageous to be stylistically excellent. From the general designs, locations, wardrobe, make-up, CGI. The lead actors did a great job, and the directing was superbly executed. Same goes for both editing and the atmospheric soundtrack; technical elements that I find myself often annoyed at in many a modern movie.

I'd put Advantageous under the same banner as Her and Ex Machina, for comparison. Although it should be noted that the melancholic joyfulness from Her, and the enigmatic suspense from Ex Machina are both lacking completely here as Advantageous is a lot more of a subtle epic, with a focus on the humane interrelationships much more than what both those movies do. And to me, that was exactly what made Advantageous such a brilliant, unique gem, although I dearly love both Her and Ex Machina as well.

I can't figure out why this got such a low rating. Those of us who feel our middle class existence slipping away from us and our children will appreciate the contemporary feel. I would think any man with a wife or daughter in the working world (or any women who have a career or aspire to one) may find the film hitting a bit too close to home.

The story was well-written, the acting reasonably good, and the cityscape both attractive and well-created.

It prompts a discussion of the very nature of self: Who am I, who will I be in the future; if I have my heart surgically replaced, I am still me, no? What about my brain? What about ... everything?

I ran across Advantageous on Netflix after starting and stopping a couple of big budget movies. I will concede that I am a sucker for sci-fi, but this is more than sci-fi. It is a question about medical science and implications for humanity. It is also a question about the priorities of society and what poorly chosen ones can cost us. I can honestly say a film has not caught my attention and made me think this much in years. The strength of the film is obvious because it did not rely on elaborate special effects and action scenes to have an impact.

As one reviewer described it, the deliberate choice of everything - from color, to music, to lighting was so well thought out, it was truly watching moving artwork.

And yes, I used the word film to describe this work rather than movie. The two have a definite distinction.

Making a believable science fiction film is hard. Making a believable science fiction film on a low-budget is nearly impossible. Well at least it used to be until director Jennifer Phang came along and proved otherwise in her Sundance festival hit, Advantageous. Phang was able to create a futuristic world with minimum visual effects by altering mundane human perception. There are three important techniques she uses to achieve this effect.

The first is the deceleration of time for background objects while objects in the foreground continue to move at a regular speed. This mixture of various speeds becomes a motif for understanding the futuristic world she presents to the audience.

The second technique is the compression of space achieved by using telephoto and zoom lenses. The human eye perceives depth of field in three dimensions. Objects farther away are small and objects closer to us are big. This is normally replicated with a dolly shot in films where the camera physically tracks forwards or backwards. However, in Advantageous, the zoom lens is used to compress the space in front of us. The camera stays still and we simply get closer to the subject. This causes a flattening of space to the point our eyes are no longer able to perceive the distance between the foreground objects and background objects.

The third technique Phang uses to create a believable science fiction world is silence. Yes I talk about silence a lot, but it does wonders. Our ears are not used to hearing complete and utter silence. In every moment, even at the quietest moments, we are subjected to some level of constant ambient noise. Whether it's coming from the Air Conditioner, the Fridge, the Wind, there's always something preventing us from experiencing complete silence. However, when we do finally get the chance and we see a character on a big screen screaming and crying in complete silence, our ears are hit with a new level of sensory experience. The new sensory experience is foreign to our ears and forces the audience to take the character he or she is watching out of his assumption of the character's world. This means, the audience finally recognizes that the character he or she is watching does not have the same sensory understanding of the world as he or she does.

These three techniques were vital in Phang's ability to successfully create a sophisticated and at the same time genuine science fiction world on a low-budget.

It starts out as some parallel future where medical advances allow for certain procedures to be done. And marketing. Single moms exist in the future still and so does aging. Real life problems, drama ensues. Of very vanilla variety plus the sprinkles of sci-fi nefarious experimentalism. It just kind of rolled along, unfolding, doing the thing stories do.

It wasn't until the very last scene that tied it all together for me and then it hit me like a ton of bricks that the whole movie was an elaborate setup of this clincher. And it's not what you think. I burst out in tears as the credits began to roll as I wondered at the brilliance I just witnessed. It was so unexpected. Anyway, I'm probably blowing it out of proportion, but I recommend watching this.