Clermont-Ferrand ISFF Review: “Death of a Fantastic Machine” (2025)
Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival
Labo
Those who saw the 2023 feature documentary And the King said, What A Fantastic Machine (AKA Fantastic Machine, https://ubiquarian.net/2023/01/sundance-review-and-the-king-said-what-a-fantastic-machine-2023/) may find the new short film from Axel Danielson & Maximilien Van Aertryck rather familiar. This is because much of Death Of A Fantastic Machine is a feature-length documentary cut down to a short format. There is perhaps a certain amount of irony in a film that examines humanity’s relationship with photography and imagery, only to find its very existence reframed in a new way. Yet in the three years since the original was released, the world has moved on immeasurably and – as the title of the film would suggest – Danielson & Van Aertryck think the outlook is rather more bleak than they first envisioned
As with the feature version, Danielson & Van Aertryck playfully use existing footage to examine how photography and imagery have changed the world. After photography was invented, the moving image soon followed and seemed to invite a new world of fidelity – as the film points out, writing at the time suggested that the purpose of photography was “…to give evidence of facts”
Yet manipulation was already a part of the process. The feature film’s original title came from King Edward VII, whose coronation was filmed by Georges Méliès. Except it wasn’t –Méliès made his own version in Paris with French actors. On seeing it, the King himself said, “What a fantastic machine the camera is. It even recorded parts of the ceremony that didn’t take place, lest we believe that ‘fake news’ is just an invention of the modern era.
We then go through a whirlwind of new inventions – the television, the internet, Cable TV, and the smartphone. All connecting us to imagery 24/7, a constant, never-ending bombardment of YouTube, Netflix and whatever else floats your boat. But the machine of capitalism must make us all consumers. Mysterious algorithms point us to new content, content that must be ‘engaged’ with. The issue is that engagement often happens when our primal emotions are triggered.
But this new short goes beyond the original by exploring the new spanner in the works – namely, AI. The ability to create any kind of imagery – moving and otherwise – brings us into a whole new level of what constitutes reality.
As with the original, there’s a certain lightness of tone on occasion, but both Danielson & Van Aertryck seem less sanguine about what will happen in the future and offer little insight into what we might do to mitigate the situation. It’s often been said that the trouble with AI is that people will have a lot harder time separating the real from the fake. But one moment in the film shows an emaciated girl holding a dog in the rain, an image that incites sadness and evokes empathy. The camera pans up, showing it’s part of a tweet that says ‘I don’t care whether it’s AI. It’s true.”
It’s not the fact that we can’t tell what reality is anymore that is worrying. It’s the fact that we won’t care.
Yet the very existence of this film – made for The New Yorker and screening in Clermont-Ferrand’s Lab section – might also be seen slightly as fighting fire with fire as it bombards us with footage to make us think about the footage we see.
Year: 2025
Runtime: 16’
Country: Sweden
Language: English
Directed by: Axel Danielson & Maximilien Van Aertryck
Written by: Axel Danielson & Maximilien Van Aertryck, Mikel Cee Karlsson
Editing by: Mikel Cee Karlsson. Axel Danielson & Maximilien Van Aertryck
Produced by: Axel Danielson & Maximilien Van Aertryck
Production companies: Plattform Produktion AB
