Ok, so we finished Fast Cheap and Out of Control eight minutes ago.
As Robyn said one minute ago: “There are no words.”
But I’m going to try anyway.
So, things the movie does, it talks about humanity. It talks about God. It talks about souls and consciousness. Art. Death. Levels of being. I’m not going into all of it right now, but let’s start with God.
The four men were all versions of God.
The topiary man, he is the bumbling elderly gardener, who cannot quite control what happens to his creations in bad weather, and doesn’t have the seasons of his youth to repair the recent damage. And there will be no replacement, when he finally dies.
The mole-rat man, he is the housebuilder, the anthil-watching deist sort of god. He builds the habitat and gets a kick watching his little mole rats scurry around, their squeaks help him sleep. Their brutality fascinates him, their adaptability, their interaction.
The lion-tamer is the institutional god. Organized religion. The snapping of the whip and fire of a blankloaded revolver that keeps the mighty beast docile and dominated. He has had close calls, but he has survived. Even he is a degraded version of the old God, the movie star God, the God who could make a lion and tiger fight for film and entertainment.
The robot maker, the clockworking god. He is some fascinating mix, a Pandora and a Prometheus. Willing to give life and mobility to machines that will eventually end life as we know it. Wideyed, brilliant, godlike, a creator who embodies a sort of inspired recklessness.
And all the people. We are robots, mole rats, topiary, and lions.
There’s some funny elemental thing happening here, too. Four artists. One works in metal, one wood, one earth, and one in flesh. Strange crazy stuff.
I don’t know what to think.