Tag: social media

Another Body

Posted on by Paul Risker

A reflection of a face in a pornographic video reflects in the eye at the beginning of directors, Sophie Compton and Reuben Hamlyn’s unsettling documentary, Another Body. The face is of the film’s subject, Taylor. It doesn’t feel like an appropriate adjective to describe the film, reductive more than enhancing its importance, and the experience it offers audiences. It’s an arresting image, and the first in a film whose visual aesthetic of jarring video diaries, computer screen shots and animation, evokes the feeling of the horror that has been thrust upon the many victims of this new breed of cowardly online abuse.

The movie explores the personal story of engineering college student Taylor, who discovers her identity has been used for deepfake pornography. Sharing her personal story, there are other women from her college whose identities have been stolen, their faces placed onto pornographic content and uploaded to mainstream sites. Taylor connects with other victims and outlines her experience with law enforcement. Through the striking aesthetic that feels as though it has one foot in reality, the other in the digital space, the directors reconstruct Taylor’s pursuit of the person responsible for appropriating her image, and the image of other women for nonconsensual pornography.

It feels relevant to reference David Fincher and Aaron Sorkin’s The Social Network (2010), specifically how the social media giant, Facebook, was born of a frustrated and angry man’s intent to dehumanise women.

The deepfake videos are made by manipulating AI technology, using images shared or posted by the person on their social media channels. Compton and Hamlyn use their documentary to discuss social media’s history of being weaponised against women, direct and indirectly. What we’re witnessing in this age of digital appropriation of identity, is an escalation of misogyny. While we talk about progress towards treating women with equality, dignity and respect, that 90% of deepfakes are nonconsensual pornography of women, suggests a seething and thriving hostility towards women. This has been empowered by a reactive legal system, that has been reluctant and slow to respond.

Another Body is vitally important because it’s at the vanguard of pushing to create a conversation about deepfake pornography. Victims will encounter hostility when they try to speak out, and the film presents glimpses into this toxic indifference, void of either empathy or sympathy.

Taylor tells us that’s not her real name and an actor’s face has been deepfaked over her own. It’s the only way she could feel safe to tell her story. It gives us an insight into the sophistication of deepfake technology, and despite knowing it’s the face of an actor, our mind is tricked into thinking otherwise. It speaks about the authenticity of the technology and the seamlessness by which a person’s identity can be appropriated.

Compton and Hamlyn effectively take us inside the experience of their subject, first by how a young person striding towards a career in engineering is abruptly halted by the shocking revelation. Then, they allow the film to empower Taylor and her friend Julia, whose identity is also protected, to speak about their experiences. Taylor talks about the anonymity of the person behind the deepfakes and how not knowing the reason why, leaves victims not able to feel safe anywhere. She also discusses how her obsessive-compulsive disorder, anxiety and being a people pleaser, escalate the trauma. From behind a deepfaked face and using a pseudonym, she intimately opens up about her experience and the ways in which it has impacted her. If her online assailant has dehumanised her, speaking up humanises her, and the many victims of deepfake pornography.

Another Body is part of a wider and necessary conversation. There should be a call to action to fight the weaponisation of social media and technology against women. If we’re serious about equality for women, then it’s imperative that women shouldn’t have to live in fear in our digital future. The history of women has been one of dehumanisation, fear and oppression, and the inability to legislate technology risks a cyclical experience, especially when the film’s closing text tells us: “Deepfakes are doubling every six months. Researchers predict there will be over 5.2 million in 2024. 90% are nonconsensual porn of women.”

Another Body shows at the 31st Raindance Film Festival, and also at the Science360 section of the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival. In cinemas on Friday, November 24th.

Eighth Grade

Posted on by Alasdair Bayman

Adolescent school kids are nothing new to celluloid. Established in the template of The Breakfast Club (1985), future coming of age stories have always been shifted towards John Hughes’ very 1980s’ mould. Embellishing its contemporary setting, Bo Burnham’s directorial debut Eighth Grade utilises the strange world of social media and school life in order to create something entirely new and ground-breaking. Integrating Burnham’s idiosyncratic style as a comedian, with an acute cinematic eye for the strangeness of formative childhood experiences, his career as a Youtuber, comedic stand-up and actor are cumulatively reflected in this feature.

Kayla (Elsie Fisher) is the ‘other’ in her class. Following her as she goes through the motions of her last few weeks in the titular year, the disparity between her veneer online profiles and the real Kayla is a grand one. Commencing as the audience would watch a video on the platform, Burnham and Andrew Wehde’s camera slowly zooms out from a tight close up of Kayla enacting her online persona. Flourished with her trademark ‘Gucci’ outline, her audience is unsurprisingly very small. Reserved at school, the difference between the two characters we see at home and online underlines a fragility to Kayla’s slow growth as a human being. Allowing this discussion to grow further, the all-consuming and frequently falsity of online profiles is a clear framework expanded on. Yet, beneath this, the director allows his own personal experience of the medium to ruminate in the character Fisher portrays.

The filmmakers, chiefly in Burnham’s writing, inject an overwhelming sense of pride when observing the teenage girl participate in the real world – away from any screens. Such a potent emotional response suffuses itself throughout. Her innocence, along with perceiving her everyday life as a sequence of profound events – exemplarily in the deployment of a slow-mo tracking shot of her crush Aiden (Luke Prael) – speaks to a universal experience we all share.

Selecting to merge montages of the social media the teenager is consuming with that of a normal medium close-up creates a new cinematic landscape to represent the consumption of the internet – thankfully gone are the Matrix-esque codes and algorithms which dominated the early half of the 2000s. In the camera further, you are interpolated at water level with Kayla as she negotiates a pool party – recalling Barry Jenkin’s Moonlight (2017). With a comedic film, praise always falls to the writing and deservedly so in this instance, yet behind the dialogue rests a great artistic craft of cinema.

Eighth Grade feels as though it will be revisited time and time again by audiences, allowing them to indulge themselves in the innocence of youth, whilst bringing a complete new interpretation through viewing a change from the youthful mind-set of Kayla towards her caring Dad, Mark (Josh Hamilton). Filled to the brim with sincere tenderness for its central characters, as well as viewing them in all shades of grey, Burnham deserves as a standing ovation for his debut, just as he has done previous during his stand-up acts.

Eight Grade won the Audience Award at Sundance London in 2018, when this piece was originally written. It’s out in UK cinemas on Friday, April 26th (2019).

Ingrid Goes West

Posted on by victorfraga

If Ingrid Goes West was not a film, it would be the perfect tweet. Social media expert Gary Vaynerchuk once shared his advice on how to write the perfect tweet. He came up with the following five golden rules.

1. Is it to the point?

There is no doubt about it. Ingrid Goes West goes right to the point and it does not momentum towards the end. Ingrid (Aubrey Plaza) is an unstable young woman with a checkered past of obsessive behaviour. When her mother dies, she inherits some money which allows her to move to Los Angeles. She is determined to get close to Taylor Sloane (Elizabeth Olsen), a foodie photographer. Ingrid wants Taylor’s life. The dialogues are witty and the stalking situations are funny. From the beginning, you get the message that the film is a satire about the use of social media.

2. Is the hashtag unique and memorable?

The narrative is a sequence of events under late Zygmunt Bauman’s influence. The Polish philosopher and sociologist once wrote: “Unlike real relationships, virtual relationships are easy to enter and to exit. They look smart and clean, feel easy to use, when compared with the heavy-slow, messy real stuff.” Ingrid Goes West is the simplest synthesis of Bauman’s thought. When Ingrid finally conquers Taylor’s superficial affection, her life becomes confused and difficult to deal with. Both Ingrid and Taylor are cons, charlatans, much alike to MyAnna Buring’s character in Hot Property (Max McGill, 2016). Real life is far more complicated than a hashtag.

3. Is the image attached high quality?

Spicer chose Los Angeles for his settings. LA attracts people who live out their fantasies and are often perceived as extreme consumers and show-offs. Mulholland Drive (David Lynch, 2001) and La La Land (Damien Chazelle, 2016) also associate the city with consumerism and materialism. It’s hard to maintain your personality intact in a city like Los Angeles. Spicer’s inspiration for the film is Instagram, a social app for boasters and showers.

4. Does the voice sound authentic?

Ingrid Goes West sounds creepy. Ingrid’s voice is so authentic that you begin to question if you have ever behaved like her – and whether likewise you suffer from a mental disorder. You might even feel guilty if you have updated your Facebook status just before entering the cinema. The director uses comedy in order to criticise and reveal the irony of us watching the film. The lightness of the genre leads to an undesired consequence. You tend to forget the film soon. Just like you probably forgot what you posted a week ago on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

5. Will it resonate with the audience?

This is a film reminding us that we live in a world where we get an excessive amount of information about everything and everyone all the time. During last Sundance Film Festival, the film was well-received by regular audiences and it reached its target younger audience. The film is out now at BFI LFF, but it may not reach the visibility it deserves. Ingrid Goes West is a perfect tweet, yet it doesn’t have the strength to go viral.

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Ingrid Goes West showed at the 61st BFI London Film Festival in October, when this piece was originally written. It’s out in UK cinemas on Friday, November 17th.