Ich bin dein Mensch: Maria Schrader’s film subverts convention and pokes holes in the fabric of reality
Image: Ich bin dein Mensch, Letterbox Filmproduktion
Ich bin dein Mensch is, at first glance, a fairly typical rom-com. We meet our protagonist, Alma, as she encounters her well-groomed date, Tom, for the first time. They meet in a dimly lit bar; jazz is playing in the background; a waiter brings them wine. All is not as it seems, however: Tom is a humanoid robot designed to be Alma’s ideal partner, the bar is populated by holograms, and their date is part of a three-week scientific study in which Alma agrees to participate so that she can fund her research project.
Over the course of their date, Alma presses Tom with questions - “Do you believe in God?” “Do you have a favourite poem?” “What is the meaning of life?” - and asks him to perform complex mental arithmetic. Smartly written and slickly executed, this scene is the first hint that Maria Schrader’s film does more than toy with the matchmaking potential of modern technology. Under the guise of a romantic comedy, Ich bin dein Mensch swiftly overturns the conventions of its genre and prompts its audience to find answers to the same existential questions that Alma poses in the opening scene.
Schrader deliberately implements certain hallmarks of the rom-com genre - Tom runs Alma a bubble bath, makes her pancakes for breakfast, and is inexplicably talented at ballroom dancing - while avoiding the often uncomfortably objectifying male-coded camera gaze that is part and parcel of Hollywood rom-com staples. Alma is complicated, brusque, and often dislikeable; at times, her behaviour towards Tom is almost exploitative. The audience is invited to perceive her as a highly flawed, three-dimensional character, rather than as a love object whose sole purpose is to complement the male protagonist. Schrader is conscious of this imbalance; in one particular outburst, Alma accuses Tom of existing merely as an extension of herself. Their relationship is not real, she implies, because it is founded entirely on her needs and wishes. Tom’s algorithm recalibrates constantly to adjust to her demands, with the ultimate aim of becoming the perfect partner: her computer-generated soulmate. Presented in this extreme way, Schrader highlights the superficiality of so many on-screen relationships, where the love interest exists not only to satisfy her fictional partner, but also to fulfil the impossible standards to which women must aspire in everyday life.
But in spite of the ostensible inauthenticity of their relationship, Tom and Alma develop a surprising sense of intimacy. They connect through their appreciation of art; Tom is shown gazing at a photograph on Alma’s wall and later admires the exhibits at the Pergamon Museum, where she works to decipher ancient love poetry written in cuneiform, an ancient alphabet made up of wedge-shaped signs. In one shot, the camera shows Tom mirrored by a statue that he is observing. Here, Schrader offers an insight into the motivations and purposes of human creation. In one sense, both Tom and the statue are imitations of the human form, whose existence serves as a testimony to human skill and our desire to understand ourselves through art. But Schrader’s framing also hints at Tom’s own attempt to discover something of his identity through his observation of the statue. Throughout the film, she thus highlights the collision of the ancient past and near future, of German and cuneiform, and of human and robot, perhaps suggesting that our creations - statues, poetry, technology, and films - are not merely reflections of their makers, but can take on lives of their own, and offer us a better understanding of both ourselves and of others.
Admittedly, there is an inherent contradiction in examining the superficiality or authenticity of a relationship in a fictional format. The medium of film attempts to construct an accurate representation of reality, just like the scientific programme of which Tom is the product. But perhaps it is the intentional absurdity and improbability of the situation constructed by Schrader that gives rise to a depiction of human relationships that – for the first time in rom-com history – truly resonates with its audience. For Alma and Tom, technology both highlights their differences and forces them to recognise their similarities. They do not receive a stereotypically happy ending; any romance between them is tentative and fleeting. But while Alma’s participation in the programme is ill-fated, the future of her relationship with Tom is left open-ended; and even if it is ultimately doomed to fail, the film seems to emphasise the importance that they try. Perhaps, Schrader suggests, we might only find answers to the questions that Alma asks of Tom on their first date by overcoming our desire for universal truth or meaning and embracing the irrationality of a rapidly developing world.
Ich bin dein Mensch (2021) can be found on Amazon Prime and Curzon Home Cinema.
