The Thinking Machine #74

In their series The Thinking Machine, critics Cristina Álvarez López and Adrian Martin create a new video essay for Filmkrant every month.

An individual is confronted in a bare room by two representatives of the law. They fire tricky, strange, confusing questions at the suspect. Everyone stands uncomfortably, they shuffle and mumble. The physical space is charged, weird, dreamlike. Has this ordinary, working person actually committed any crime at all? We all hold secrets; but are we all, therefore, guilty? The central section of the recent, true-life recreation Reality (directed by Tina Satter) intersects with the virtuosic opening sequence of Orson Welles’ The Trial (1962).