Filmmakers Elena Gaby and Taryn Southern (the latter also a multimedia/video artist) use precise, Kubrickian framing and sensational storytelling to depict breakthroughs in human-computer interfacing. Not so much the future-shock approach of many a cyber-documentary ("Transcendent Man,") for example, the emphasis is on how "brain hacking" can bring about medical miracles for the afflicted. Here we see a badly paralyzed man in Cleveland wired up at a local technical college for a neurological procedure that may allow him to move again. Thanks to "deep brain stimulation" implants, a Canadian grandmother and artist can literally turn off her crippling Parkinsons symptoms with a flip of a switch. Another Canadian man, long blind, begins to have something approaching vision via California-developed prosthetic eyes. Though a curious tangent into data mining and abuse of information is included as a sort of caution, the overall message here is that becoming a 'cyborg' need not be a nightmarish sci-fi movie scenario but, for many patients, offers a cutting-edge solution to suffering. Recommended. Aud: C, P. (C. Cassady)
I Am Human
(2019) 91 min. Not rated. DVD: $24.99 ($299 w/PPR). Passion River Films
I Am Human
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