Gloom and doom "Pleasures"

Synthetic Pleasures

Synthetic Pleasures wants to be a documentary with the final word on technological paranoia, and, for our sake, let's hope it is. It latches onto the tail end of at least six years of fascination with virtual reality, the Internet, and all things "cyber" that started in the late 1980s. In its earlier stages, this technological fascination has spawned movies such as The Lawnmower Man and Johnny Mneumonic; needless to say, little will be missed when this scare dies down.

Synthetic Pleasures is an exercise in doom-and-gloom futurism, dealing with such topics as body piercing, cosmetic surgery, genetic engineering, cryogenics, the Internet, drugs, and artificial beaches, all of which are attempts to control the human environment. According to the filmmakers, as the human race progresses, we try harder to quickly transcend nature--both inside and outside ourselves. We try to sanitize everything, to make it suitable for mainstream consumption. This need for control extends to every field--from tourism to space travel to tattooing. We want to remove the annoying sand that gets in our eyes when we visit the pyramids. (And why should they even be in Egypt? Why not Las Vegas?) We want to have snow that's always perfect for skiing. We want salads without bugs in them.

These are valid yearnings, yet Synthetic Pleasures fails to have absolutely anything to say about them. Instead, the film invokes the familiar horrors of a future society dominated by technology to the point where all identity is lost as people remake themselves to satisfy their every whim. This vision can be found in any Bladerunner knockoff. Perhaps when America Online was still in its infancy, these fears might have been justifiable. But by now, it's difficult to approach the Internet with either awe or fear because, essentially, it's become a place for twelve-year-olds to download porno.

The visual presentation of this documentary is also quite out-dated. Ironically, while decrying the rapid loss of contact with the real world (through television, networking, etc.), Synthetic Pleasures uses a lot of jump cuts and flashy editing to keep our ever-diminishing attention. The images it does flash by are tame and boring: a computer graphic of a person morphing into a lion? Michael Jackson did that years ago, when he was still selling albums. A virtual reality roller coaster? Maybe the Star Wars Ride was thrilling, but after the tenth or eleventh virtual reality roller coaster, they all start looking the same.

There simply isn't any excuse for the theatrical release of this documentary. No distinction exists between Synthetic Pleasures and any PBS special. Though due to the brief Japanese kendo-sex scene the filmakers lifted from a website, PBS may not even have had it.

The fundamental problem with the entire subject matter in this film is that, in the end, it all boils down to a question of individual choice. Whether or not you want to embrace body piercing or virtual reality or LSD is entirely up to you. Drive-up marriage windows will affect you only if you choose to be married in that particular fashion. Choosing to be frozen when you die is like choosing what color underwear you want to wear, or deciding what kind of toppings you want on your pizza. This documentary, like all of its kind, asks us to make judgements about issues that are essentially none of our business. I will say this, however, about the twenty-somethings shown in the documentary: (1) They have a lot of rings in their faces, and (2) They need to get some jobs.

The filmmakers steadfastly pursue the "let's ooh and ahh at the strange people" documentary style for the bulk of Synthetic Pleasures. Then, suddenly, there is a cop-out in the conclusion.

A man appears on the screen holding his daughter. In a voice-over, he says that, if technology makes people mindless zombies, that's bad; however, if technology allows him to "hug" his daughter even if she is three thousand miles away, that's good. Thanks for clarifying that, sir.