Digital

I came across this film accidentally, as it was broadcast as a "filler shortie" in between longer features on French PLANETE TV channel, and was glad to have seen it a couple more times since. It's a chillingly accurate, even if a bit depressing, montage of shots of a generic modern city, presented as an environment devoid of human emotion and preventing any individualism. The film's apparent objectivity, driven by a matter-of-fact narration (which resembles a lecture of a future-day historian or a guide for an alien race) underlines how the concept of "digital" has been created to change the meaning of eating and loving habits, of everyday life and reality, of humans inhabiting the planet Earth. Reminiscent a bit of "Matrix", but only in its focus on alienation and desolation of the soul, it is scarily more relevant to our real lives today (especially with the recent advent of virtual reality worlds such as Second Life, etc.)

In what I presume to be a mockumentary fashion, the shortie is presented as "Key Concepts of the Modern World Series - Chapter 3", with another chapter mentioned as coming up. This only works to strengthen the chroniclary mood of the observation (as does the mentioning of Encyclopaedia Britannica at the start of the narration).

Strongly recommended. Don't miss it if you have a chance to see it.