The Secret Matinee in Exile: Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto, domo, domo

Here's a picture of a salt shaker:

No, this isn't a Jimmy Buffett reference or some kind of coded message. It is a picture of a salt shaker that I took at the Blue Water Bar and Grill in Friday Harbor. My family met up for a day out, yesterday, and I joined in - 

Which means that the Secret Saturday Matinee is still in exile - so back to
the Science Fiction + Fantasy Short Film Festival. 

Today, a robot.

Movies have always liked robots. A robot can be whatever you want it to be -

In Metropolis, a mad scientist creates a female art-deco robot. We know its female because it has boobs and a feminine face and boobs. He then animates it by using the soul of a woman, Maria, a school teacher from the morlocks. The scene is still one of the most famous and enduring of the cinema in the twentieth. After they boot up the robot with Soul OS 1.0, it goes wild, fornicating left and right.

In Forbidden Planet, Robbie the robot provides all the characters’ needs so we don’t have to ask what Walter Pidgeon eats on an otherwise desolate planet.

In 2001: A Space Odyssey, Hal is the implacable adversary and the only character that we can feel anything for. Hal is the last obstacle for mankind before they go beyond the infinite: mankind’s own technology, turned on it.

In Short Circuit, Number 5 is struck by lightening - and that makes it more than just circuit boards. The line between human and robot seems like an important line to cross.

So, what are we to make of Robota?

A woman lives in a room, white, featureless, except for the technology she lives with and the large fish tank that dominates the room. Every morning, she feeds her carp and then goes about her day in her modest room.

An R2 D2 style robot sees to her needs through the day, feeding her, giving her pills, providing entertainment. At night, the robot monitors her dreams and tries to make them come true the next day.

When she dreams of light bulbs, the robot gives her light bulbs for breakfast. When she dreams of the carp, the robot gives her her pet carp for breakfast.

It’s never clear whether she is a guest, a prisoner, or a pet, and whether the robot is her servant or her keeper.

But taking away her pet, the carp, is the last straw. In a fit of rage, she destroys the monitor over her bed and, I think, the robot, itself.