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    ‘My Robot Sophia’: An Unsettling Look Into the Soul of a Machine

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    This film by Jon Kasbe and Crystal Moselle skirts gimmicks to examine a creator’s drive to build a humanoid device powered by artificial intelligence.In 2017, a robot named Sophia was granted Saudi Arabian citizenship, a dubious move on many fronts. Real human women had only earned the right to drive a car in the country a month earlier, and robot citizenship was also, somewhat transparently, a publicity stunt. Sophia, which is humanoid and powered by a proprietary artificial intelligence engine created by Hanson Robotics, has participated in a number of stunts since then, including appearances on “The Tonight Show” and at a lucrative sale of its art during the 2021 NFT boom.All of these events and more appear in the new documentary “My Robot Sophia” (on digital platforms), but the film skirts gimmicks to go in a more tricky and unsettling direction. It’s an almost soulful portrait of the artist under capitalism, rather than another exposé on robotics and artificial intelligence. It’s a bit parallel to Alex Garland’s fictional film “Ex Machina.” And in the Frankensteinian tradition, the robot’s creator is not uncomplicated.The title of the film implies that Sophia belongs to someone. That someone is David Hanson, the chief executive of Hanson Robotics. A loner and an artist from a young age, he became fascinated with creating lifelike masks. His lab is crowded with them, rubber faces on little pedestals that seem, in the background of many shots, to be staring upward in open-mouthed wonder, or terror.That kind of image adds subtext, and it’s all the more astounding because it’s nonfiction. “My Robot Sophia” is littered with visual tells, and if you’re not actually watching with your eyes, you might miss what they’re saying. The two directors have experience telling these sorts of sprawling stories that require a lot of patience, time and observation — Jon Kasbe with “When Lambs Become Lions” and Crystal Moselle with “Skate Kitchen” and “The Wolfpack.” You see what they see.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘The Black Sea’ Review: Bulgarian Dreams

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      In this quietly sweet indie, a Black Brooklynite finds himself stranded in a Bulgarian seaside town, where he finds unlikely redemption“They have dreams in Bulgaria?” Khalid asks a man, hiding from the downpour, in “The Black Sea.” One might say they do: “Like the American dream, but in Bulgarian way,” the stranger responds. In a sense, it’s what Khalid (Derrick B. Harden) has unwittingly found as he tidies up in the cafe he’s cobbled together in a small seaside Bulgarian town.Things move fast and somehow both bizarrely and believably so at the start of this somewhat peculiar but endearing indie directed by Crystal Moselle and Harden. We’re barely introduced to Khalid, a charismatic if unfocused Brooklynite, before he finds himself stranded in Bulgaria after the sugar mama he met on Facebook and came to meet is found dead seemingly the moment he arrives.Grounded by Harden’s natural and loosely charming performance, Khalid treats his nightmare scenario with an alternating sense of anxiety and buoyant, joshing can-do attitude. He gets a job with a town-running bully (who’s also his sugar mama’s son) named Georgi (Stoyo Mirkov), but when things go sideways, he turns instead to Ina (Irmena Chichikova), a local travel agent who gives him a place to crash. He finds his footing, makes friends with locals and starts slinging open-faced grilled cheeses and matcha teas out of a makeshift cafe.The fundamentals of this film are just about as arbitrary as Khalid’s personal journey — it’s not everyday that a low-budget American indie focuses on a stranded Black Brooklynite moving and shaking his way to a new life in small-town Bulgaria. Not that there needs to be a point at all.Regardless, Moselle and Harden work with a subtle naturalistic touch that makes for a quietly sweet movie about unlikely redemption. This is mostly rooted in the partnership between Khalid and Ina, a relationship that, in its avoidance of overt romantics, blossoms and finds meaning in the gentle progression of their closeness.The Black SeaRated R for language and some sexual material. Running time: 1 hour 36 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Untold: Caitlyn Jenner’ Review: Honoring the Athlete

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      Caitlyn Jenner recalls her past as a decathlon champion in this sports documentary directed by Crystal Moselle.Caitlyn Jenner is best known as a tabloid celebrity and family member of the Kardashian clan who publicly transitioned as a transgender woman. But “Untold: Caitlyn Jenner” — an episode of the new Netflix documentary series “Untold” that highlights underappreciated stories from sports — illuminates the events that brought Jenner her first taste of international recognition; namely, her gold medal win as a decathlon athlete in the 1976 Montreal Olympics.Jenner narrates her own story, describing an intense training regimen that included grueling practices every day for four years. The director Crystal Moselle (“The Wolfpack,” “Skate Kitchen”) supports Jenner’s recollections with archival footage, culled from home videos, practice footage and clips from the Olympics broadcast. The combination of contemporary footage and the present-day internal monologue creates a sports-broadcasting dream of sorts: allowing the audience to hear the athlete’s thoughts at the moments Jenner executes seemingly impossible leaps, races, vaults and throws.But if the sports footage is rich with detail, the treatment of the purportedly untold portion of this story is thinner. The documentary shows that the greatest athlete in the world — as decathlon winners are often called — was a transgender woman. Yet Jenner’s perspective on her past suggests a unique alienation. She speaks about how she “built this Bruce character,” as she puts it, and she attributes her successes to this invention. She acknowledges that she used sports to avoid coming to terms with her gender identity, but she remains proud of what her creation achieved. It’s an intriguing perspective that unfortunately receives little follow-up or elaboration, leaving the film flat-footed when it steps away from the track.Untold: Caitlyn JennerNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 9 minutes. Watch on Netflix. More