Natalia Almada’s Users begins with the Mexican-American filmmaker, through voiceover, detailing how people in the past were mired in the everyday minutiae of child rearing without the help of modern technology. She then goes on to descry the electric cradle that used to rock one of her children to sleep. This cradle more effectively rocks and soothes a baby than a person ever could, in the process supplanting parental attachment and responsibility.
The observation encapsulates a concern that’s haunted Almada throughout her motherhood: the rapid proliferation of advanced technology and its relationship to humans, specifically her own children as they grow up. Following the opening, which sets the stage for the rest of Users, Almada launches into a boldly visceral articulation of this notion without ever feeling academic. With a complex sound design, richly cinematic images, and a propulsive musical score, this ambitious documentary reflects Almada’s wide range of feelings in its very aesthetic fiber.
One of these feelings is a sense of childlike wonder that’s conveyed by visuals that make the ordinary seem extraordinary. Whether relying on wide static compositions or roving drone shots, Almada often emphasizes the symmetry of things, and in ways that take the film into a painterly realm. This is evident in everything from overhead shots of a park to a shipping barge being unloaded, even in depictions of ostensibly mundane processes that hinge on technology that we often take for granted, such as water recycling and the entertainment delivered to us on airplanes. Coupled with the filmmaker’s voiceover pointing out the sheer ingenuity behind the technology on display, Almada’s visual approach not only makes these moments dazzling, but also beguilingly reminds us of mankind’s profound capacity for innovation.
Between its observational shots of how technology is embedded in our daily lives and Philip Glass-esque score by the Kronos Quartet, Users invites comparison to the Qatsi trilogy, but there’s a playfulness to Almada’s documentary, especially as a result of its juxtapositions, that differentiates it from Godfrey Regio’s work. After showing a scuba diver painstakingly laying down an internet cable in the middle of the ocean, Almada jarringly cuts to one recipient of this data: a young boy mindlessly playing a video game in the comfort of his home, clearly oblivious of the complex web of processes that made this pastime possible.
Yet Almada never shies away from the potentially dehumanizing effects of certain technology. In one heartbreaking moment in Users, the filmmaker admits that she sometimes feels as if she’s at war with various forms of advanced technology for the affections of her children, fearing that her very human imperfections stand no chance against technology’s increasingly perfecting ways. And in the spirit of her ruminative thoughts on the electric cradle, Almada extends the film’s opening analogy to the role of technology in the process of filmmaking.
Almada’s use of the voiceover becomes a kind of cinematic Turing test to the viewer. At one point, Almada is seen in a recording booth giving consent to use her voice for AI-generated vocals, revealing that the narration throughout Users was actually delivered by a computer dictating lines using her voice. In this moment, even those who haven’t considered the impacts of ChatGPT and other generative AI technologies may find themselves at a loss for words.
This experiment in AI is only one part of the vast breadth of topics that Almada touches on throughout Users, and the fleeting manner in which they’re often presented—sometimes without context—may make it seem like the reach of the film is exceeding its grasp. But that’s by design. Users is inextricably bound to the very thing whose unstoppable creep worries Almada, who understands that there are more questions than answers in a world where technology is increasingly redefining almost every aspect of our lives. The film’s triumph is keeping us on our toes by sending us into an ether where fear and wonder live hand in hand.
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