“Can I Fuck This?”: Alex Garland’s Ex Machina

For all their glossy futurism, female cyborg stories overwhelmingly pivot on the immemorial horror of rape. Whether such films and TV shows allegorize radical social upheaval or contemplate the mysteries of human consciousness, rape scenes inevitably lurk within their narratives. Sexual assault plots pair frequently enough with women’s bodies onscreen, but when those bodies are […]

Unbearable Lightness: Melanie Laurent’s Breathe

“When you’re passionate, are you more free or less free?” A high school teacher poses this question to his class, and studious protagonist Charlie (Joséphine Japy) cites Nietzsche to answer: “It’s easier to renounce passion than control it. Meaning, we become so preoccupied by it that we lose a kind of freedom.” The excerpted lesson concludes […]