I Am

Noé (Sheri Hagen) lives alone in the depths of the forest in a house with whole walls made from glass. She is visible and invisible at the same time, a secret self hidden away, ready to be revealed to anyone who might seek her out. How did she come to be in this place? It feels more metaphor than reality. She is buried in grief. Someone – perhaps her sister – has recently vanished from her life. Among the trees, in this landscape of stories, she searches for answers.

When we first meet Ela (Melodie Wakivuamina), she is running. We are primed to expect very particular dangers when we see a woman running like this, in a lonely place – frantically, without looking back. But Ela is not a woman. She collapses not from exhaustion, but because her battery has run out. Transferring those expectations, we might imagine her as a runaway slave. She is dressed like somebody’s sex toy. It’s a relief to see Noé find her, take her home, clean her up and restore her function. Cinema has famously been called a machine for generating empathy. It is hard to recognise Ela as a machine.

The bond that develops between these two characters forms the core of this Oscar-qualifying short. Ela is a machine designed to please. She observes, absorbs, imitates. She does it so smoothly that it’s easy to overlook, especially for someone like Noé, who is actively projecting her longing for the person she has lost. Only gradually does Noé become uneasy. We see it in small things. Singing a fragment of a song whilst preparing food she can only pretend to eat, Ela crosses a line. Noé’s discomfort grows. One might argue that issues like this crop up in every relationship, but there is a difference. Noé doesn’t know what Ela might be capable of; and she doesn’t know who’s hunting her.

The title seems to hint at a question. Ela cannot produce independent thoughts, merely process data – but if Noé thinks and Ela imitates it perfectly, can she be said to be alive in her own right, as per Descartes’ maxim? Ought an imitation of life to be valued like a person? It is not always clear, here, who is exploiting who, or which of the central pair is a danger to the other. if they can both understand this, might there be room for a mutual respect, and for something real? Or is that dangerous too?

The performances here are very precisely balanced. Wakivuamina skillfully strips out emotion from hers whilst Hagen lets us see the depth of Noé’s pain, the extent of her need. A weight of history and expectation is packed into the 28 minute running time, conveyed not through dialogue but through the acting. There’s a cosy domesticity about the interactions within the house – the very context where most interpersonal violence actually takes place – but in the meantime, drones are scouting the forest, getting ever closer.