Dedicated to our Jumanjee

For the Bicentennial Robin Williams,

Movie Review

'The Bicentennial Influence'

"The Bicentennial Man" is a wonderful movie that depicts the emotions of a robot who desires to be human. As a unique robot, at first his curiosity drives him to be like a human and later his love for the lady inspires him to be the better half of his love. In contradiction of the usual expectation in a sci-fi movie about robotics, the robot in 'The Bicentennial Man' does not develop into villain from his technologically enhanced human desire. Instead, he desires to be mortal like that of a human. His taste of humanness grooms from his desire of being clothed, having a bank account, need for freedom, and willingness to invest in robotic research. After having all that he desired he seeks for the company of robots like him. He voyages all around the earth to find another 'Andrew' but there isn't even one like him. In this journey he encounters with a genius but financially poor robotic engineer whom he funds well enough to help in his research to change the appearance of a robot into human. Andrew gets human look (with human parts) from the help of his engineer friend and gradually he also inculcates artificial nervous system, bodily senses, capability to have appetite, quality of ageing and finally achieves mortality. The latter development in him was driven by his desire to get the love of his lady who equally loves him back. However, his main struggle in the film is to gain 'human status' from the world committee so that his marriage with his love becomes socially and legally acceptable. The movie brings tears in our eyes to finally reveal whether he gains the human status or not.

There were few events, responses and behavior of the characters in the movie that I found quite interesting. The movie through the medium of Andrew (played by Robin Williams) has tried to show the significance of being human. It can be seen from Andrew's behavior when he starts developing more human nature. He seeks for freedom even when no one is ordering or enslaving him to do anything. He thinks he is not free despite of being technically free from getting any orders. Freedom does not have a definition. Freedom is the sense of being free and everyone has a different sense. Everyone seeks to be free in their own way.

I don't know whether it is irony or just a tragedy that his desire to be human motivates him to be free at first and after being free he has to lose his freedom of 'not dying' in order to achieve human-hood. No matter how free we are or we want to be, in human world there always are rules. If you don't believe me look at the legal system of your country. You have rules to cross the road, rules to behave in public, rules to use your property, rules to marry, rules to divorce, and etc. But don't freak out you have all the rules (so called duties) because you have rights too. 
  

The protagonist's struggle in the movie to be a human and understand human life persuades us in subtle manner to rethink on our own human experiences; the one's we have lived and the one's we have left out. At first attempt, Andrew fails to gain human status because the judge tells him that people can tolerate a robot having human body and living as a human but they can't tolerate him living as a human but immortal. This would arouse jealousy among them and ultimately desire to destroy him. One human cannot tolerate another human living happily forever. It's understood but not convincible. We all have experienced it in one or other phase of life.

Also, the way Andrew describes sex in the movie is fascinating. One person gets so much into another person that it is confusing to tell who is who. He describes it as going to heaven with your loved one and coming back. I wonder if it is! Anyway, Sex between a human and a robot is possible but not marriage! It is quite a complex world we live in. Yes, I know it is a sci-fi movie and I should not take a robot-human sex thing literally or seriously but the marriage thing is just so much metaphorical to simply ignore it.

Movie takes us along with different life experiences of Andrew among which his love and marriage is an interesting and significant one in terms of understanding the complexities of our human world and rules. Marriage between one personality and other needs approval of the society. Qsn: Why does a marriage need approval? Ans: Marriage is said to be seed of the family and family- a source of society. We need a society to live in and society needs a family; family gets legitimacy from marriage. So if we are to live in a society we need our marriage to be approved. As they have rightly said, what goes around comes around. The entire human civilization has been about the development of efficiency to make human life less complicated but the more we study human society the more complex it gets.

Well, at the end, when Andrew is asked why does he want to do this (end his immortality to be a human) he replies that he wants to be ignorant about who he is. Ironically, Robin Williams died in a similar manner. He committed suicide. May not be young but he certainly died early. He chose to be ignorant about the potentially he had as an actor and as a great personality. But that was less for him and maybe he wanted more. What can be more than wealth and fame? Probably Peace! I hope he has it now. R.I.P (Jumanjee) Robin Williams!

Adity Karki