"The object for which I was constructed was to prevent war. This object has now been attained..."

But there's peace, and then there's desolation...

I'd just like to take a moment to talk about one of my favourite films, Colossus: The Forbin Project. It tells a familiar tale - that of a supercomputer deeming itself superior to humanity and inciting the robot revolution - but delivers it in a way that is not merely trite but classic. In some ways it's quaint - a throwback to the days when computers still worked on magnetic tape, punch-cards and vacuum tubes - but many elements of it are timeless. Colossus's implacable monotone and hoarse electronic grate is as inimitable as HAL-9000's soft, menacingly gentle undermining persuasion. Then, of course, there's Dr. Forbin himself. Throughout the entire film he's as level, precisely-cut and unflappable as a Fifties newsreader, even as the machine that he created spins beyond its design parameters at a terrifying speed - even when Colossus announces a "JUST AS PLANNED" victory and pulls the rug out from under Forbin's final gambit to wrest control back, he only responds with a tired, resigned blink, as though he really half-expected it, and concedes to it with a phlegmatic shrug.

After the detonations as Colossus launches a small-scale nuclear strike as a demonstration of its power, the rumbling of the bombs shakes Forbin's mask of imperturability, and causes it to slip. For a few brief moments we see the core of the man, the torment and anguish that he's bottled away and penned in for the dutiful sake of putting on a brave face for the rest of the planet - when he shrieks at the news crews with a violent, sheeting outburst of pressure his back's turned to the camera, as though in shame.

The camera swings upwards to the ceiling as Colossus drones on about its vision of the future, uninterrupted by all of the mere humans moving about on the floor - the dizzying, bewildering, impossible enormity of the machine's triumph just can't be encompassed by the width of a camera lens. Note how Forbin is introduced in the last scene as calling from the "Colossus Programming Office", but when Colossus itself finishes it is already being signed off by the news as "World Control"; there's even the barest second's pause to let you know that it's not a recording but a real person catching himself over the awful words - and still surrendering to them. Its domination is total and definitive.

Then, Forbin fixes his mask back in place - and tightens it so that it can never come loose again. There's a delightful piece of stagecraft where he reaches a hand towards his wife - but he's not seeking comfort from contact with her, but reaching for a manual (concealed behind a monitor). His level voice is restored, but rather than the calming, welcoming, easily confident voice of public authority, his final bark of never is as hard as milled steel. The heat of the bombs has distilled Forbin - nothing's left to him but the annihilation of his fearsome engine.

It's an understated masterpiece.

(YouTube link to the final part)