I picked up Android (1982) on VHS at a local Friends of the Library book sale. Because of my work on internet related films (I also picked up War Games (1984) on VHS!) and because I am a fan of films like Westworld (1973) I figured it was going to be well worth the 35 cent donation.Oh was it ever! There is much for a young theorist to work his maws over in the 80 minute sci-fi tale, proclaimed on the back of the box as "a triumph of what is human over what is alien." The film, believe it or not, never makes a clear case for "what is human," and there are no aliens, so...maybe that reviewer saw an early cut. The film is about triumphs, however, including the sexual coming of age of a frustrated 5 year old android named Max 404, the Oedipal slaying of a father figure (played by the, well, German Klaus Kinski), and the violent rise of the proletariat worker (really! See below!).
In the film, Max is coded as a teenager, listening to rock and roll (James Brown's "Its a man's man's world"), dressing like a gangster, playing video games, and returning like for like by disrespecting the rule of his overbearing father and creator, Dr. Daniel. After the Dr. tells him to turn off his music, stop playing his games, and go to sleep, he takes a distress call from a passing police ship. In doing so he is unaware that he is actually letting on board three escaped convicts who have killed the ships crew.
Even by the time they hear the news that the trio, including Brie Howard as the sultry Maggie, it is little matter to the father and son who have been at least 5 years without the sight of a woman. Dr. Daniel is a Dr. Frankenstein character whose major narrative dilemma is his inability to design a female android parter, thereby completing his dream of creating "the ideal working class" (yes, that is a quote). He sees in Maggie the solution to his problems, a body on which to base his creation as well as the animating force. No parthenogenesis here; Androids can only come to life in the presence of sexual energy. Klaus is happy therefore, despite Max's rebelliousness, when he catches him making out with Maggie over the android Cassandra-- the kiss provides the spark of life that animates her. Well, the police arrive eventually, but not until Maggie's convict cronies fight over her, a sweaty, bare-chested, tight-pantsed tussle that results in a concussion for the loser and Maggie's rape and death. Max kills her assailant, then, with the help of Cassandra, he kills Dr. Daniel as well, ripping out his head to reveal the sparks and wiring that show him to be an android as well. Cassandra and Max assume the roles of "Dr. Daniel" and "his assistant," a ruse that provides them the protection of seeming human and an escort to Max's fantasy world - Earth.
The sets are an excellent feature of the film, opting for the standard multi-light displays, and automatic doors (can I get these in my apartment yet?) but executing the details with great style. Sadly neither the internet nor an analogue figures in this futuristic tale. There is a great example of adopting the aesthetics of a competing technology, however. Apersonal favorite aspect for me is the rhyme between the video-games that Max loves to surreptitiously play and the joystick and green-screen interface that he uses to (FIRE!) incinerate up the first police ship that arrives. Though the film asks for our compassion towards Max, the rhetoric of violent video games leading to violent behavior is already set in place. The mise-en-scene completely gives way to emulating a video-game screen in this sequence, but it isn't only film that is forced to make room for its big-eating little cousin. The soundtrack, too, includes a track by The Fibonaccis called "Sergio Leone," and it sounds just like a level track in a video game. Sergio Leone is played over the credits, and, of course, the font used is similar to that typical of 1980's video games.
There are two lengthy intertextual bits as well, in each case a lengthy clip of a film Max watches. The first clip is an intercut of the lengthy animation scene in Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1927), and the second is of Jimmy Stewart as David Bailey in It's a Wonderful Life (1946), dawdling in front of Mary's home, a conflicted suitor. Each clip has a clear correspondence to the narrative -- the animation of Cassandra (and the entailed animation of Max and Dr. Denis) and Max's clumsy but successful attempts to woe Maggie -- but I suspect a deeper reading into the implications of these quotations would bring a greater understanding to the film as a whole. There is a third reference, in Don Opper's performance and in the paratextual claim that he cops a "Chaplain herky jerk walk."
Oh, that reminds me, I'm supposed to be watching City Lights (1931). I wonder how it will read if I listen to The Fibonaccis at the same time!
