Daily Archives: January 29, 2022

VIRTUAL REALITY

Can We Prove the World Isnt a Simulation?David Chalmers | NautilusYou might think you have definitive evidence that youre not [in a simulation]. I think thats impossible, because any such evidence could be simulated. Maybe you think the glorious forest around you proves that your world isnt a simulation. But in principle, the forest could be simulated down to every last detail, and every last bit of light that reaches your eyes from the forest could be simulated, too. Your brain will react exactly as it would in the nonsimulated, ordinary world, so a simulated forest will look exactly like an ordinary one.

Experimental Robot Surgeon Can Operate Without Human HelpEd Cara | GizmodoA team of researchers at Johns Hopkins University and elsewhere say their robot was able to pull off a complicated and delicate surgical procedure on a pig without the assistance of humans for the first time. Whats more, the robot even appeared to do the job better than human surgeons. STAR is the first robotic system to plan, adapt, and execute a surgical plan in soft tissue without human intervention, [Axel] Krieger, an assistant professor in mechanical engineering at Johns Hopkins, told Gizmodo in anemail.

The New Version of GPT-3 Is Much Better Behaved (and Should Be Less Toxic Too)Will Douglas Heaven | MIT Technology ReviewThe San Francisco-based lab says the updated model, calledInstructGPT, is better at following the instructions of people using itknown as alignment in AI jargonand thus produces less offensive language, less misinformation, and fewer mistakes overallunless explicitly told not to do so.

How to Build a Better MetaverseGilad Edelman | WiredThe metaverse, you may have heard, is the next big thing: an ever-present social cyberspace in which peopleor their digital avatarswill work, hang out, and shop. As it happens, this was also the next big thing in 2003. In many ways, the metaverse being pitched by Facebooker, Metaand other companies isnt so different from Second Life. And yet [Philip] Rosedales creation never came close to reaching the world-conquering scale that gets the likes of Mark Zuckerberg out of bed in the morning. What could make this time different?

The Battle for the Worlds Most Powerful CyberweaponRonen Bergman and Mark Mazzetti | The New York TimesFor nearly a decade, the Israeli firm had been selling its surveillance software on a subscription basis to law-enforcement and intelligence agencies around the world, promising that it could do what no one elsenot a private company, not even a state intelligence servicecould do: consistently and reliably crack the encrypted communications of any iPhone or Android smartphone.

The Quest to Trap Carbon in Stoneand Beat Climate ChangeVince Beiser | WiredOn a barren lava plateau in Iceland, a new facility is sucking in air and stashing the carbon dioxide in rock. The next step: Build 10,000 more. For direct air capture to have a real impact, the industry has to find a way to expand at a stupefying rate. Climeworks, Carbon Engineering, and their ilk need to build thousands of plants to capture even a few gigatons of carbon dioxide.

What if Quantum Computing Is a Bust?Chris Jay Hoofnagle and Simson Garfinkel | SlateWhat if, as some critics like [Mikhail] Dyakonov argue, quantum computing is just too complicated and too hard a problem to solveat least for the next few decades? In this scenario (call it Quantum Winter), quantum computing devices remain noisy and never scale to a meaningful quantum advantage.

Image Credit:Marek Piwnicki / Unsplash

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This Week's Awesome Tech Stories From Around the Web (Through January 29) - Singularity Hub

Phil Lord and Christopher Miller know how to turn nearly anything into a good time.

Over a wide-ranging 20-year career, Lord and Miller, who first met at Dartmouth College, have demonstrated a unique knack for finding fun, clever stories in some of the least likely places.

The creative tag team who often swap writer, director and producer hats gave staid plastic bricks an awesome makeover in The Lego Movie franchise. They helped to transform the lesser-known comic book character Miles Morales into an Oscar winner with Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. They found laughs in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, with the Fox sitcom The Last Man on Earth, and in an earnest 80s TV drama, with the 21 Jump Street films. They also produced Netflixs animated Oscar contender, The Mitchells vs. The Machines, which turned a terrifying technological singularity into a heartwarming family adventure.

Now, theyre injecting mirth into murder with their new series, The Afterparty, whose first three episodes premiere Friday on Apple TV+ (the remaining five episodes will air weekly).

When Miller birthed the murder-mystery idea in 2010, he envisioned it as a feature film, having taken inspiration from classics like Rashomon and Clue. In 2019, he revised the story to fit an episodic TV format, and he served as the showrunner and director of all the episodes while Lord executive produced. The finished product is a whodunit built like a Matryoshka doll, with multiple cinematic genres nestled inside of one big mystery.

With an ensemble cast that includes Ike Barinholtz, Ilana Glazer, Sam Richardson and Ben Schwartz, the series revolves around a high school reunion that ends in death. Tiffany Haddish plays a Columbo-style police detective whos sizing up the crime scene.

Were all stars in our own movie, the detective tells the suspects, and the series literalizes the point. Nearly every episode revolves around a different partygoers account of the nights events and is presented in a style that reflects that characters personality: a sappy rom-com for Richardsons lovelorn alumnus who is pursuing an old crush; an absurd action flick for Barinholtzs emasculated ex-jock; a psychological thriller for Glazers paranoid valedictorian who fell from grace.

Lord and Miller talked recently about The Afterparty in a joint video interview from their respective Los Angeles homes, where theyve been preparing Spider-Man: Across the Universe (Part One) for an October release, as well as scripting and animating the reboot of their early-aughts animated series Clone High for HBO Max. The puckish pair discussed switching gears, sweating the details and getting a second chance to make a good impression. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.

You jumped into this live-action project right after finishing an animated one, Into the Spider-Verse. Do you approach those two mediums differently?

PHIL LORD The bottom line is we dont really see them any differently; we treat everything the same. I dont know if its that our sense of humor is just juvenile enough to appeal to children also, but in all cases, were trying to do something that we havent quite seen before. Were always trying to experiment. Maybe thats why we Ping-Pong back and forth.

CHRISTOPHER MILLER Were always trying to take a story and figure out how to make it something new and add something to the conversation. We follow that story to where it wants to be its best self.

In an animated episode, theres a quick sight gag about Easter eggs. Should viewers be looking for those throughout?

MILLER This is a crazy thing because we are crazy people. Because it was a puzzle of a murder-mystery, we thought it would be really fun to add some hidden Easter egg-style clues, codes and ciphers for people to solve, as a bonus. You dont need to freeze-frame and solve these things to figure out whodunit; thats all there in the narrative. But, on top of that, for the uber-nerds, there are a lot of little details in the set dressing, signage and other hidden messages that, if you decode them, give you hints into who did or didnt do it. Making a show where every episode is its own little movie, each episode is shot with different lighting, lensing, costuming and music is a huge production challenge. We thought, Why not add one more production challenge on top of it?

LORD Its like making a bespoke thing. I always like receiving a gift from filmmakers, something physical thats had that level of attention, as opposed to something that feels clean and manufactured. The trick with this stuff is that its mass entertainment, but you never want it to feel mass-produced.

Did you go back and take notes on films from all of the different genres?

MILLER Absolutely. There are a lot of different subgenres within these genres. Like, there are a lot of different types of action movies. So there were a lot of conversations like, Is this going to be a Fast & Furious, or a John Wick, or a classic Die Hard action movie? We never wanted to make anything a parody or a spoof. Were big film buffs, and its all done with love and admiration for how other people have found interesting ways to tell stories. Were sort of stealing all their best ideas and putting them into one thing. We wanted to use the storytelling conventions of those genres to let us have a window into these characters inner lives.

Which styles would you use to tell your personal stories?

MILLER One of those rambling, improv-filled comedies that dont have a lot of plot because thats what I think our daily life is like.

LORD White male ennui like, Oh, we all just rented a house in Ojai and were going to work out our beefs from growing up.

What was it like creating and filming during the pandemic?

LORD We made a summer bubble in 2020. We both were renting places in Malibu, so we would walk down the beach and have production meetings.

MILLER But making the show, obviously, was in-person. We shot from October 2020 to February 2021. I think the chemistry on the show was due to the fact that so many people had just been in their homes by themselves. They showed up on set and were just so happy to be around other human beings. So the mood on set was like nothing wed ever done before.

Thats not surprising: Most of the cast members would be considered the exclamation points of their previous projects.

MILLER Its basically a show filled with a dozen exclamation points! You get all these people who are the funniest people you know in a room, and it makes for a joyous experience. So many of the cast are hyphenates creators, writers, directors, showrunners. They all are approaching this thing from the point of view of somebody who makes stuff as well. So they were able to hold this complicated thing in their heads. Youre asking them to come in and not just play a character but play eight different versions of a character. Its a very complex ask.

LORD Theyre also all on offense. Nobody is there trying not to get in trouble, or to play it safe, or to avoid looking stupid. Theyre all there trying to figure out, What could be contributed to this moment?

Have you attended any of your own high school reunions?

LORD Ive been to many. The first hours conversation is always like, Im miserable! Yes! I hate it here! Lets leave! Then, by the end, you just hang with those few people you grew up with and remember why you were so close so long ago, and its a very warm feeling. Warmth and humiliation. At my 25th, they gave out certificates, and I got Most Improved. It was nice for one second to feel that I was well-liked. And then I immediately knocked over the entire drink table. I leaned on it when I was feeling confident, then it collapsed under my weight, and I felt embarrassed all over again. In a reunion, you experience all the emotions of high school in a four-hour period. Its like High School: The Ride.

MILLER I missed one or two. It is a complicated experience. You go to these things and youre mixed up with a lot of conflicting emotions there are fond memories and painful memories; youre reverting to old dynamics and you want to feel like youve moved past some of those things. What high school reunions are, for many people, is theyre presenting the version of themselves they want their old classmates to see.

What the show is really about is trying to get people to take a moment to look at the world through someone elses eyes. When you do that, you might find that people are more surprising and complex than you think.

Having worked together since college, how do each of you think the other has changed? Is your work dynamic different from what it once was?

MILLER Its not like one is the this person and one is the that person.

LORD Were both the messy one. Chris was the messy one until he met me.

MILLER Hes right. I am the Felix to Phils Oscar, but I would be the Oscar to any other person. But we are both very involved in every step of the creative process. In our early days, we were looking over each others shoulders trying to write scenes in the same room, and it was really hard. Nowadays, we talk about what our goals are, then we go off separately and have a little room to try things, fail, figure it out and then send them to each other. It only makes its way onto screen if both of us feel like weve got something.

LORD Now, I think were more curious about what the other person is going to bring to it, knowing the end product is going to become something neither of us wouldve done on our own. Thats the pleasure of having a partnership because you just dont know where its going to go. That used to feel scary, and now it feels really exciting.

MILLER And the key to that is having a lot of trust and admiration. Its like a marriage.

LORD Like a marriage, without some of the fun parts.

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The Afterparty Is a Genre Romp Wrapped in a Comic Mystery - The New York Times

Credited with shaping the modern-day pop scene, Australia has served as the port for a number of artists who have pushed the boundaries of rock. Melbourne has swiftly become the hot spot for budding musicians to prosper and grow as an artistic community. Better still, many of them have been women.

In recent years, Melbourne has grown into something bubblier and more eclectic, swiftly becoming the cosmopolitan hubbub where society and singularity go hand in hand. In other words, it has become the Australian Dublin, or Manchester, depending on how you look at it. Priding itself on diversity and integrity, the city has fashioned a newer, trendier voice for artists to go behind.

Take Julia Jacklin, for instance, a burgeoning songwriter determined to fashion a new lexicon from an art-craft that stems as much from her personal life experience as it does from her personal geography. Her music is sombre and cerebral, much as Courtney Barnetts is raw, rollicking and frequently vivid.

Indeed, Barnett was happy to welcome the title of raucous rock and roller, not least because it gives her a chance to plug in her guitar, and wail. I love playing loud and aggressive and disjointed music, Barnett noted, adding: And I love that songs can have different lives. So Im sure theyll get a bit faster, get a bit more energy, get a bit more raucous. But what I wanted the recorded version to sound like was keeping in check with that sense of calmness.

Other female voices that have begun to emerge include Stella Donnelly, Camp Cope, Sarah Blasko, all of whom can stand proudly beside Melbourne favourite, Kylie Minogue. Pencilled by many as the live music capital of Australia, the city holds a number of live venues, many of them enigmatic, but all of them distinctive.

The Cherry Bar certainly made an impression on Noel Gallagher, who considered purchasing the place, before praising blues exports, Jet. Im glad Jet are from Melbourne it would have been shit if they were from Sydney, because I dont really like Sydney that much, the Oasis guitarist said. Theres a very nice harbour, but a certain lack of soul about it. Id rather live here.

And then theres Heartbreaker, another trendy bar that focuses on the guitar riff ahead of the grooves commonly heard on the dance floor. For those aching for a more electronic fused outlet, Beneath Driver Lane offers an alternative avenue from which audience members can let their hair down and dance.

The Carlton Club has decided to go all out and embrace the opportunity of an all-female lineup for their first-ever live event. Solo electronic artist Kids At Midnight will curate an event the Love Safari, an show at The Carlton Club that will see the likes of The Girl Fridas, Aurelia, Roz Yuen and Kids At Midnight. The dissertation of this particular event is that it will celebrate the best of female artists the country has to offer.

Australian singer-songwriter Sarah Blasko is swiftly emerging as one of the more interesting electronic-pop artists of her generation, but like many others before her, its art led by heart, not commerce. I havent had any real training, she modestly said.Just life, the training of life. Ive been doing it for a while. Im old. And I love performing live. Thats actually my favourite part of playing music. I love recording, but performing is where I started. I didnt do a lot of my own recording to begin withI just got up on stage and performed. Its what I fell in love with.

She wont be the only one falling in love with life, or Melbourne, by the sounds of things. And the city should be applauded for everything it is doing to encourage more women to take out their guitars and sing. Art must be measured on its propensity to be enjoyed, yet it should also be measured based on the vitality of its foundations. What it holds in stature has been rewarded by the variety of acts in its grasp. Dublin brought guitar bands U2 and The Frames into the conversation, Manchester gifted the world a convoy of esoteric groups like 10cc and Buzzcocks, and now Melbourne looks like it will be continuing the narrative to the next logical step pop is determined to take. Fittingly, the majority of the acts seem to be women.

The city certainly helped Gotye to find his natural voice as an artist. Reflecting on his success, he denied using a formula to gain incredible success: There are so many great songssome of which get the attention in the pop sphere and some of which are only heard by a small number of people. Its not a perfect song by any means; I dont think there is a perfect song.

Hes referring, of course, to Somebody That I Used To Know, a choppy indie song that many derived as a Sting composition when they first heard it. The song was released ten years ago, at a time when indie was dominated by males alone. Back then, the role of a female singer was to play the role of a jilted lover, as was heard in the Gotye epic.

But Barnett and Blasko have shown that women are more than capable of writing cutting-edge pop, laced with attitude and adrenaline. Its thanks to Melbourne, music pouring from the stages, and back onto the streets. Speculating on how the city will evolve is bound to be pointless, but given the sincerity of the music, the diversity of the acts and, best of all, for the quality of the work.

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Melbourne Music: The women who pushed through a new era - Far Out Magazine

In 2021, investment and financing returns in the crypto industry constantly broke record high. Among the records, 7 OClock Capitals highest return investment reached an ROI of 10,733%. According to Chain Broker data, 7 OClock Capital was one of the top funds last year in terms of return.

2021 was a momentous year for the crypto industry, bitcoin reached an all-time high of $69,000, DeFi, Layer1, Layer2, NTF, GameFi, and Metaverse erupted alongside with record levels of investment and financing. With the birth of numerous outstanding funds7 OClock Capital has risen to the top and achieved remarkable results as Asias most specialized full project cycle servicing fund.

7 OClock Capital established the first DeFi+DAO Eco Fund focusing on DeFi, public chains, Web3.0, Layer2, Metaverse, GameFi, and more. Among 100+ investments, Metis ROI hit 10,733%, Definas ROI reached 9,360%, Singularity Daos ROI was 4,306.67%, Deepers ROI was 2,647.5%, and other projects such as JGN and Lithium Finanth yielded 50x in return.

7 OClock Capital has leading blockchain business consulting and investment research abilities. Its professional consulting brand, 7 OClock Labs, has consulted for more than 100 projects: from business structure and economic model to brand positioning, marketing operation, and promotionempowering the entire project ecological cycle.

7 OClock Capital also specializes in providing post-investment services. Its community is one of the most active in the industry, and has done over 200 AMAs, multiple online salons, and 10+ offline events since its establishment.

By building an eco-partner network in Korea, Singapore, and Dubai, 7 OClock Capital is committed to setting ground as the most professional full-cycle project service fund in Asia.

In September 2021, 7 OClock Capital hosted the 9th China SME Investment and Financing Fair, and the 2021 China Blockchain Industry Summit at China National Convention Center with over 4,000 attendees. China is known to be one of the key markets in the crypto industry, and thats where 7 OClock Capital has unique advantages.

As an investment fund in the crypto industry, 7 OClock Capital adheres to its strategic mission of bringing value to the industry and gives full play to its ability and strengths in selecting and serving prospective projects, and accompanying the long-term growth of projects.

Entering 2022, 7 OClock Capital became a Metis Asia Pacific eco-partner, together building the Metis ecosystem for a better future.

New public chains, Layer2 and its eco-projects, GameFi,SocialFi, Web3.0 infrastructure, and many more blockchain projects are all areas of great potential and key investment directions of 7 OClock Capital. Based on its philosophy, 7 OClock Capital will continue to thrive in the 21th century.

If your project needs help in promotion, funding, technology support and more, please feel free to contact us in the methods below.

Follow us

Websitehttps://www.7oclockcapital.com/

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7 O'Clock Capital: Top investment institution that's willing to accompany projects for long-term growth - The Block Crypto

The post Our Lady Peace on Reuniting with Futurist Ray Kurzweil, Working with TV on the Radios Dave Sitek appeared first on Consequence.

Listen viaApple Podcasts|Spotify|Google Podcasts|Stitcher|Pocket Casts|Radio Public|RSS

Our Lady Peace leader Raine Maida catches up with Kyle Meredith to talk about Spiritual Machines 2, the sequel to their 2000 album of the same name.

The Canadian songwriter first takes us back to the original and how they linked up with futurist Ray Kurzweil, who also guests on both Spiritual Machine releases. Maida discusses all of the predictions Kurzweil made that have come true, and Our Lady Peaces plans to have him appear in their upcoming live shows holographically.

Maida then dives into how the new songs speak directly to the tracks from 20 years ago, the new predictions for the future, his thoughts on Simulation and Singularity, working with TV on the Radios Dave Sitek and also having founding guitarist Mike Turner back to guest on the record.

Listen to Raine Maida discuss Our Lady PeacesSpiritual Machines 2and more via the player above or the YouTube embed below. Also, make sure to like and subscribe to Kyle Meredith With wherever you get your podcasts, andfollow theConsequence Podcast Networkfor updates on all our shows.

Our Lady Peace on Reuniting with Futurist Ray Kurzweil, Working with TV on the Radios Dave SitekConsequence Staff

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Our Lady Peace on Reuniting with Futurist Ray Kurzweil, Working with TV on the Radios Dave Sitek - Yahoo Entertainment

The controversy over hijab-clad female students not being allowed into the classroom at a government college in Karnataka is a symptom of aggressive nationalism. A democratic society must accommodate the many different practices of the self with their many social and religious armatures in order to open up access to education, especially to women, writesPARINITHA.

ONE way of disciplining bodies into uniformity is through the uniform. The disciplinary measure of uniformising bodies is never in the service of affirming egalitarian membership of a community, whether pedagogic or professional or national. Hierarchies of power are marked out through the sartorial protocols of uniforms. The bodies of employees, students, and workers, among others, are massed into collectives through the uniformity of uniforms. As against this, power displays itself through the singularity of its sartorial and bodily markers or through the privilege of being impervious to the disciplinary regime of uniforms.

In a government college in Udupi, Karnataka, a group of hijab-clad girlshave not been allowedinto the classroom for a month now because they are said to be violating the rules of maintaining uniformity in the class room. What is seen as even more transgressive is these girls defiant stand that they be granted the right to bear the markers of their religious identity in the class room. This steadfast and firm demand of the girls, in spite of the huge backlash they have been facing, has been construed as the unruliness of those who have to keep to their place both because of their gender as well as their religion.

Also read:Of Muslim womens rights and unnecessary obiter

First of all, we need to unpack the common sense of a uniformity that is not socially or historically embedded, and which has to be maintained in the classroom. The classroom has never been an areligious or socially neutral space, either in terms of the protocols or the content of pedagogy. Prayers are a part of the time table of the school day, religious festivals are celebrated in schools and colleges, and the body can never be divested of the markers of religion, whether in the form of ornaments or decorations on the skin, or the markers of caste, concealed or unconcealed. The ethical subject, performatively displayed in the classroom and disciplined into law-abiding citizenship through the school curriculum, has a strong religious dimension and foundation. Given this fact, why should the hijab be seen as violative of the rules of uniformity in the classroom?

The classroom has never been an areligious or socially neutral space, either in terms of the protocols or the content of pedagogy. Prayers are a part of the time table of the school day, religious festivals are celebrated in schools and colleges, and the body can never be divested of the markers of religion.

One answer could be that the religious provenance of many of the rituals performed in educational institutions, like an invocation to Goddess Saraswathi at the beginning of a function, or the celebration of Ganesh Chathurthi in colleges, through being associated with the majoritarian religion, have been glossed over as universal and areligious, and displayed as part of an institutionally organized and mandated set of secular rituals. Secondly, an aggressive nationalism that is founded on religion will brutally erase all signs of cultural and religious diversity in an attempt at homogenizing the national identity that it wants to corporeally and culturally coerce into existence.

Also read:Muslim Womens Struggle against Triple Talaq, some reflections

Another way of looking at this event has been to see these girls as the victims of religious patriarchy. Either they are seen as reluctantly submitting to the imposition of a dress code imposed on them by their religion and the patriarchy that is mandated by this religion, or they are seen to be submitting to this imposition willingly as a result of religious indoctrination.

An aggressive nationalism that is founded on religion will brutally erase all signs of cultural and religious diversity in an attempt at homogenizing the national identity that it wants to corporeally and culturally coerce into existence.

If that is so, and if the hijab is worn as a reluctant submission to patriarchy in order to gain certain concessions in return, then there is all the more reason for educational institutions to be sympathetic to the cause of these girls. Their submission to patriarchy, reluctantly or willingly, in no way makes them ineligible to access their fundamental right to education. And if the only way for them to get educated is by submitting to a dress code that is coerced on them, then it is incumbent on educational institutions to become more flexible so as to accommodate and lighten the constrained conditions under which they are permitted to access education. Across religions and cultures, women have been made to bear the markers of cultural and religious identity and this is not peculiar to the hijab wearing girls.

But more importantly, religion is a part of the sedimented layers of subjectivity through which all of us are constructed and constituted. To be asked to sanitise the practices of being of all religious imprint and influence is to be asked to dismantle the self. What the hijab-clad girls are asking for is to be allowed to retain the integrity of a historically and socially constituted practice of the self through which they understand and live their lives. If one of the ways in which the historical and cultural specificity of this subjectivity is displayed is through the wearing of the hijab, this act should be understood from within the terms of legibility of that historical mode of being. This requires a difficult translation.

Also read:Bulli Bai and cyber violence: a symptom of power imbalance

In her book where she attempts to theorise womens agency in the context of thewomens piety movement in Cairo, Pakistani-American anthropology professor Saba Mahmoodwrote,agentival capacity is entailed not only in those acts that resist norms but also in the multiple ways in which one inhabits norms.

Their submission to patriarchy, reluctantly or willingly, in no way makes them ineligible to access their fundamental right to education. And if the only way for them to get educated is by submitting to a dress code that is coerced on them, then it is incumbent on educational institutions to become more flexible so as to accommodate and lighten the constrained conditions under which they are permitted to access education.

A radically egalitarian society will accommodate the many different practices of the self with their many social and religious armatures. Such a society will also accommodate and provide spaces of experiment and exploration for those who suffer a discomfort of being. The class room should be one such democratic space where a pedagogy of radical equality is initiated and put into practice.

(Parinitha is a professor at the Department of English, Mangalore University. The views expressed are personal.)

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Udupi college hijab ban: the uniform of uniformity - The Leaflet

28/01/2022 - Anca Damian revisits the meeting of Robinson Crusoe and Friday in a lavish, political, symbolic and poetic animated work. A contemporary and timeless visual whirlwind

"I will teach you poetry." Of all the filmmakers making their way in the potentially very creative space of international animation, the Romanian Anca Damian is undoubtedly one of the most remarkable artists. We already knew this from her exciting animated documentaries (Crulic - The Path to Beyond[+see also: filmreviewtrailerinterview: Anca Damianfilmprofile] and The Magic Mountain[+see also: filmreviewtrailerfilmprofile]) and the wonderful Marona's Fantastic Tale[+see also: filmreviewtrailerfilmprofile] (more accessible to younger viewers), but with her new opus, The Island[+see also: trailerfilmprofile], presented in the Big Screen competition of the 50th IFFR, the director has totally unleashed the horses of her immense conceptual and visual imagination, shaping a dizzying and dazzling work for all audiences (with multiple levels of interpretation), musical, surrealist, ecological and humanist, assuming without compromise the singularity of her vision.

Weaving her lush plot around the well-known (and seemingly simple) story of Robinson Crusoe and Friday's misadventures, Anca Damian immediately turns the narrative upside down. Shipwrecked on his island, Robinson despairs of the madness of loneliness, chained to hungry dreams of consumerist opulence (from hypermarkets to cooking magazines) and to his computer tablet. But then Friday appears, a survivor among migrants sorted on the beach by soldiers separating the dead from the living. In this "twisted" world, which "doesn't go round," our two protagonists discover each other, beyond words, sharing their sensibilities and fragilities. Robinson teaches Friday to swim, but the Siren and her temptations are also lurking in the area.

Robinson then decides to set off in search of paradise, accompanied by his rediscovered mother (named Mary, cf. the film's Christian subtext) and by a pirate with two wooden legs (another offshoot of Daniel Defoe's legacy). Crossing the desert, the forest of radars (with the threat of Mother Great looking for them), arriving at the Tower of Babel where war is a feast, capture, revelation of the great family secrets, crossing a ring of fire to escape, camouflage, pyramid at sea and diving into the depths: Robinson's epic, phantasmagorical and symbolic journey to freedom echoes the much more realistic parallel odyssey of the migrant Friday (ocean crossing, "cannibal" smugglers, detention camp, etc.). Both are looking for their Promised Land and will only find it through reconciliation, peace, forgiveness, the acceptance of their double and of the power of Nature.

Inspired by Gellu Naum's play Insola and unfolding over a rich visual dimension conceived by the director and Gina Thorstensen, The Island is punctuated by songs, litanies, repetitive loops and a heady "gypsy" music, all elements that, added to the narrative profusion, can make one feel dizzy in an overwhelming sensory malstrom. But in reality, each part of the film is a treasure and the whole is a fabric made up of an infinite number of sophisticated threads that will take the film through the time of cinematic history without a hitch.

Produced by Aparte Film (Romania) with Take Five (Belgium) and Komadoli Studio (France) and Special Touch Studios (France), The Island is sold internationally by Best Friend Forever.

(Translated from French)

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Review: The Island - Cineuropa