Sight from Robot Genius on Vimeo.
Sight is both my favorite and least favorite short film.
I'm a huge tech and gadget junkie and I love video games, so the idea of an ocular implant that lets you sky dive in your living room or make a game out of cooking eggs makes me all kinds of giddy (yes, giddy). In that regard--demonstrating the technology they invented for Sight--May-Raz and Lazo succeed quite well.
Where things fall apart for me in Sight is right around the point our protagonist pulls up a creepy dating app and becomes the antagonist of the story. We're suddenly introduced to the fact our "protagonist" is a major engineer of the ocular implant, and that he and his company (allegedly) use the devices in less than honorable ways. He schmoozes his date into returning to his apartment with him, but when she discovers his shady intentions and attempts to leave, he hacks into her implant and the story closes on the implication he is basically going to rape her.
While I understand the thematic intentions of the narrative, (a human staring at a blank wall, alone in his room in silence; the controversial cliffhanger ending demonstrating the potential invasiveness of getting too lost in technology), it is missing the essential elements of a story.
First, the main character is not a character we want to win (that honor goes to his date, the secondary character). The main character is a rich, sleezy playboy--hardly someone the common audience can resonate with. Even an antihero has some kind of redeeming quality.
Second, there is no change in the story. Sure, the way *we* view the main character shifts, but he harbored evil intentions from the start, and he has yet to learn the folly of his ways when the credits roll. Our newly exposed heroine is never vindicated. If this is a tragedy, then the main character must fall, which again leads to the conclusion that the female character is, in fact, the protagonist (whose mindless consumption of technology has stripped her of free will). All of this hampered of course by the catch-22 that the female character is too underdeveloped to be a main character.
Third, and tying into the second point, the story just isn't finished. This is more of an opening scene or an introduction.
I love the high concept of Sight, I think the filming and computer animation were executed superbly, and I think the film delivered its theme effectively. However the narrative is imperfect and incomplete, and I would categorize it as more of a tech demo than a short film.
