I have watched A.I without the sound on and the camera work is mindbogglingly exquisite. Spielberg, prone to sweeping shots and a camera that is always kinetic, is somehow able to convey the right amount of motion, direction, and speed to fully bring about the emotions and elucidate the themes inherit in the individual characters. However, turning off the sound denies one the experience of watching one of the saddest films I have experienced. Consider the protagonists. One is a boy designed to replace the designer’s son and purchased for a similar reason of consolation. It’s a robot designed to replace love as is the second protagonist, gigolo Joe, another robot designed to love, this time focusing on the carnal pleasures of love, as opposed to David’s emotional affinities. Why do humans need to design robots to love? Now the greater themes come into play. Spielberg and Kubrick are commenting on humankind’s inability to connect, to feel with one another. Humans design these robots and eventually they take over and the humans have died out, because while humans understand the concept of humanity they are unable to prove it through practice. Hence, the humans hold flesh fairs where they cheer the destruction of the machine, while the advanced machines, ruling in a post human environment, are contemplative and serene, lamenting the loss of humans, and cherishing the discovery of David who will be their key into the past world of living organisms.

Some argue against the success of the collaboration between Kubrick and Spielberg. I have yet to see a finer teeming in cinema between two distinct minds. Kubrick is the nihilist, who believe in the achievements of man as superior to man himself, while Spielberg is the humanist, who specifically is compassionate toward the innocence of children, placing Spielberg solely in the ranks of Truffaut in that regard. Together they crafted a film that is both tender and brutal, and I relish their achievement.