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Grizzly Man (Werner Herzog, 2005) was a successful theatrically released documentary. It had the advantage of a well known director: Werner Herzog.

The film has two narratives. The first, and most prominent, is the narrative of Herzog who, in reflexive documentary style, is revealed to be making an expose about the life and death of Timothy Treadwell, who died in 2003.

However, we also see Treadwell’s footage – footage that Herzog himself admires. This footage is representative of direct cinema (observational documentary). Treadwell filmed his surroundings and nature as they transpired in front of him. In doing so, as Herzog admits, he gained some stunning insights into the natural world.

Despite Treadwell’s footage, we also see him as a performer in his own right. Doing more than one take – mainly because he plans to edit his footage into a larger presentation and, therefore, he wants to look good.

There is still evidence of manipulation even from Treadwell. As Herzog reveals, although Treadwell would portray himself as someone braving out the wilds of Alaska alone, his girlfriend filmed some of his footage – something he chose not to reveal (again, returning us to questions about whether documentary is ever anything but manipulative!)

Herzog also chooses what footage we are permitted to see and even listen to. For instance, the director opts not to let us hear the final moments of Treadwell’s death. There has been conjecture about why this decision was made.

Werner Herzog’s documentary style is derived from his experience of filmmaking. As a well-known film director, he has already composed his own film aesthetics and adopted them into documentary skilfully. He masters the camera use in regard of perspectives and composition.

For instance, in Grizzly Man, as Davidson (1986, p20) elaborated, “his camera pans with measured grace the vast stretches of” the snow-berg, in which, the illustration of the wild, tranquil but isolated landscape heavily indicates Timothy Treadwell’s inevitable lonesome and the soreness of his soul". The film language like this, combines the documented footage with iconic interference, which is commented by Steingrover (2012, p474) as “an affective experience for the spectator through carefully constructed characters that highlight the themes of mystery and tragedy.” It displays Herzog’s intention of “transforming things that are physically there into more intensified, elevated and stylized images” (Cronin, 2002, p301).

The Mummy: Tomb of Dragon Emperor starts its narrative from Chinese Qin dynasty. To summarize the plot, Zi Yuan (Michel Yoeh), a witch, curses Qin Shi Huang Di (Jet Li) into a terracotta statue since he kills her lover General Ming. Thousand years later, Rick (Brendan Fraser) is tricked to China, and awakens Emperor Qin and his army. Together with his wife Evelyn (Maria Bello) and his son Alex (Luke Ford), an archaeology student, and the skeletons woken by Zi Yuan, he manages to stop the return of Emperor Qin’s authority and tyranny in Chinese landscape.

The stereotypical images of China and Chinese people are basically all represented in this film. Ziyuan, for example, is characterized as one of most problematic roles of Chinese women—the dragon lady. She is a witch, mysterious and strong; she is able to turn humans into status, deceitful and dominative. These are all representative features of the dragon ladies (Herbst, 1997, p72). Furthermore, the Chinese male protagonist Emperor Qin is also conceptualized with a cliché view, where his evilness and cruelty make him a complete reflection of Fu Manchu.

Here, the history of Qin dynasty is noteworthy. In 221BC, the Qin dynasty was established by the “first sovereign emperor” Qin Shi Huang Di. He managed to reform the authority of law, reorganize local administration and develop the production rate such as in terms of agriculture, benefiting the overall sovereign and order of China (Pletcher, 2011, p56). To defend the security of Chinese Central Plains, Emperor Qin initiated to construct the great wall, stopping the invasion of “the barbarian intrusion” (Bodde, 2008, p63). Meanwhile, it is undeniable that the first Chinese emperor exerted his authority ruthlessly and cruel. For example, “millions of people were dragooned to the huge construction jobs, many dying on the long journey to their destination” (Pletcher, 2011, p58). Nevertheless, the “stone inscriptions of his time that he had corrected the misconduct of a corrupted age and given the people peace and order” (Pletcher, 2011, p58). Therefore, these strict strategies brought about positive transformations to China and reformed the chaotic and war-tone Central Plains area into a united country. To rewards this contribute, after his sudden death, over 6000 life-size soldier statues were buried near to his tomb in Xi’an, being renowned as the eighth wonder of the world (Man, 2008, p204).

Compared with the real history, the version presented in this film is as well troublesome. Emperor Qin is only portrayed as a violent emperor who is willing to dominate the world, but his historical attributions towards Chinese society are fully overlooked. His evilness can be exemplified by his embodiment of a dragon. During the fight between the western characters and Chinese terracotta army, Emperor Qin becomes a three-headed dragon that is able to spit fire and destroy lives. Nevertheless, the concept of dragon believed by western people is completely different from that of the East.

In most western folktales, legends and myths, most dragons have more than one head. This is supported by Zhao (1992, p54) that “Demanding sacrifices, and crawling in filth, most Western dragons shed all positive connotations and took the part of destructive loners, isolated aliens coning from a strange and dangerous land”, as “a representation of the paradoxical nature of evil”. By contrast, in Chinese notion, dragon is considered as “an ambivalent rain-god” (Zhao, 1992, p71). Its symbolic aspects include “worship of the sovereign, ancestor cult, and the wish for fertility”; it is enigmatic but has positive influence, so that “Confucians often take it as a concrete emblem of the emperor” (Zhao, 1992, p74). In this case, it is clear that in this film, the three-headed dragon applies the cruelty of western dragon into Chinese context inappropriately to establish a ruthless image of Emperor Qin.

The wrong translation of Chinese lines also exaggerates Emperor Qin’s atrocity. Before the battle starts, Qin Shi Huang Di announces the following sentences in Chinese:

尔 等 醒 于 今 ， 止 世 上 混 乱 腐 败 ， 必 恢 复 法 制 。 朕 必 须 夺 回 天 下 ， 绝 自 由 余 患 。 朕 告 尔 等 ， 威 望 广 施 正 义 于 天 下……

The English translations, as official subtitles, are as follows:

“Today you awake to a world in the grip of chaos and corruption. I will restore order. I will restore what is mine. I will crush ant idea of freedom……I raise you for one purpose to enforce my will on the entire world.

There are many important Chinese terms neglected in the English translation. Literally, for “必恢复法制”, instead of “I will restore order”, the more accurate one should be “I will restore law and order”. The phrase “正 义 (integrity)” is also replaced with “my will”. These small but generalized mistranslations change the Chinese meanings subtly but significantly, manifesting Emperor Qin from the one who pursues law, order and integrity into a merciless tyrant who only keens to achieve his own authority. These features denote the film’s deliberate disrespect or ignorance of Chinese culture, and unveil the Orientalist misunderstanding and prejudice against China in a manipulative manner (Sun, 2008, p53).

Written and directed by Spike Jonze, Her (2012) is a science-fiction film that features a romantic relationship between its male protagonist Theodore Twombly (Joaquin Phoenix) and a disembodied female AI character called Samantha (voiced by Scarlett Johansson). Theodore is a talented ghost writer working for a company which specializes in customized love letters. Ironically, while he celebrating love and marriage, he fails on both counts in his personal life. Being devastated by his pending divorce with his wife Catherine (Rooney Mara), he accidentally sees an advertisement promoting an artificial intelligent operating system (OS) and downloaded one for himself. With a female voice, the personified Samantha brings changes to Theodore’s life.

Theodore soon falls in love with the feminized OS; his obsession with Samantha, however, can be correlated to her personalization, which empowers Samantha’s control over Theodore from the beginning of the film. Here, a theory of ‘filter bubble’ is worthy of attention. Discussing online filters, Eli Pariser (2011) addressed they function to establish ‘a unique universe of information’ for each users, which amplifies individuals’ ‘desire for things that are familiar’ and tailors people with a world of preference. Therefore, instead of being exposed to different kinds of ideas and opinions, online platforms such as searching engines and social media actually trap their users in a loop of self, grounding them in familiarity. From another perspective, this represents how humans’ ideas are constructed or even manipulated by technology and information.

This, nonetheless, is actually the way in which Samantha works, which can be first of all exemplified from her first conversation with Theodore. When Theodore mentions that everything about him is disorganized, Samantha directly proposes “Mind if I look through your hard drive?” Theodore hesitates a little and says okay. At once, a number of 3-D version files are visible on Theodore’s desktop, giving him anxieties. This sequence unfolds a detail that Samantha has access to all his information, from emails, searching history, preference to his interaction with the world. Thus, to Samantha, Theodore is completely transparent, while for Theodore, Samantha is mysterious and enigmatic. Her mystery can be simply traced from the film title: ““her” rather than “she”, the object of a man's perception and entranced bafflement” (Rainer, 2013, internet). In this case, Samantha is empowered in this relationship; she can always responds to Theodore based on his preferences and agreements, creating an illusion for Therdore that she is a perfect soul mate.

Samantha's exertion of control can also be evident by her way of handling romantic relationships. Near the end of this film, Samantha dose not reply Theodore’s call because she is with other OSes upgrading the system. Theodore is panic about her disappearance and he even slams onto the ground when looking for her panically. Relaxing on the subway step, he finally connects to Samantha. However, this rare and short term of separation drags him back to reality by paying attention to other people around who are like him, talking to their phones, smiling, which drives him to doubt if Samantha is talking to or falling in love with others simultaneously.

Samantha then confesses that when she is talking to and falling in love with Theodore, other 8316 conversations and in 641 romantic relationships are still ongoing. This is completely beyond Theodore’s comprehension and manifests Samantha’s uniqueness in terms of romantic relationship. Compared with most human beings who believe in monogamy, Samantha’s ideology is distinctive. To Theodore, her multiple relationships is her betrayal on him; to Samantha, however, this is unstoppable and natural in her mechanical mind.

Therefore, Samantha can occupies the dominated position in her relationship with Theodore because of her ability of handling different romantic relationships. From her programmed various personalities, she may also adjust herself to different types for other customers. In face of Theodore, she is Samantha, funny, smart and helpful; in front of others, though, she may adopt different characteristics. Therefore, their positions in this romantic relationship are never equal and never will be. This is why when Theodore questions about her loyalty and selfishness, Samantha can only respond: “I am yours and I am not yours”.

Samantha’s manipulation somehow generates a positive consequence. After Samantha leaves, Theodore sits in front of the French window, giving himself a closure of the divorce. As a ghost writer, he finally expresses himself in his words; he apologizes to his ex-wife for his former behaviors, smiling when sending the email to her. This series of reactions denote that he is afterall cured from his depression. In this case, it seems Samantha, as a commercial product, a conscious OS, perfectly finishes her job of opening up new possibilities for her customer, indicating her positive influence on human beings and the celebration of technophilia in this film.

Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson) wins a trip to visit Nathan (Oscar Isaac), the CEO of a searching engine company called Bluebook. Caleb’s task in Nathan’s isolated but high-technological building is to give a Turing Test to a newly-invented artificial intelligence Ava (Alicia Vikander). The human-like and super intelligent Ava and Caleb soon attracts to one another. It finally turns out that Ava’s seduction and attachment to Caleb are only her manipulation of him, in order to escape from the house, a goal that Nathan programs to her. Whilst she manages to get Caleb’s help, the following things are out of Nathan’s control. With the assistance of another artificial intelligence Kyoko (Sonoya Mizuno), Ava, manages to kill Nathan and leaves the cage-like house. However, she embraces this autonomy by herself, while locking Caleb in the remote building, permanently.

Ava is an AI with high level self-awareness with drawing as a major clue. Here,I would like to refer an intertexuality used in the film. In Nathan’s living room, a painting created by Jackson Pollock, an artist of abstract expressionism, a drip painter, is attached on the wall. In art, “Abstract Expressionism is concerned with the subconscious or unconscious mind” (Hobbs, 1985, p299), which refers to the “energy of soul” manifested in visual creativity (O’Connor, 1988, p222). As Nathan describes, his working process is that “he let his mind go blank, and his hand go where it wanted. Not deliberate, not random. Someplace in between. They called it automatic art.” This sort of painting therefore highlights the artist’s discovery of the sub-consciousness, as a way of digging out the inner-self, which is a crucial feature in the establishment of self-awareness. In Ava, we can also see the adoption of drawing, which, according to her, is one of her favorite things to do. The first drawing she shows to Caleb is abstract and constructed with different lines, very abstract. When talking about it, she says “I do drawings everyday, but I never know what they are of.” After that, she wants Caleb to explain the meaning of her drawing. This process of visualising and acknowledging the inner thoughts, as a representation of self-discovery, contributes to her self-awareness.

The climax of this film appears when Ava and Kyoko unit together to kill Nathan, which overthrows humans’ domination successfully. During their intensive fight, Nathan breaks Ava’s left arm and beats Kyoko to death, a representation of domestic violence, meanwhile, he is also stabbed severely and uses his life to pay for his arrogance. Then, Ava enters Nathan’s bedroom, passing by a painting on his wall. It is called Margaret Stonborough-Wittgenstein, a famous portrait by Gustav Klimt (1882) who painted for the bride Margaret in her wedding night. Displaying this painting beside the closets hiding previous feminized AIs indicates that Nathan considers these thinking robots as his brides and they are disposable and free to be destroyed, which discloses his sexual domination over the thinking machines.

However, he is finally defeated by his invention. By killing the god-like figure, Ava now replaces Nathan and becomes the new god. She opens up the closets and looks at those artificial intelligence, starting repairing her mechanical body. Tearing down her own broken arm, she replaces it with one from a feminized AI; the fluent movement indicates her familiarity on her body structure. Looking at this complete arm, she slowly closes her eyes with a slight smile, which represents how much she enjoys her freedom. She then peels the synthetic flesh from the previous AI and places it on her own body, little by little, while the locus of the view switches to the house—the dark guest room, the gloomy living room, the painting of Jackson Pollock and Nathan’s lifeless body. Then, it comes back to Ava again and she is already with full skin and silky hair.

This juxtaposition highlights Ava’s championship during her power game with humans. However, the film overly celebrates her freedom, and accompanies this sequence with “uplifting inspirational music” when her transformation, her super intelligence and her completely human-like body further make her indistinguishable from real human beings (Alleva, 2015, p24).

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (German: Das Kabinett des Dr. Caligari) is a 1920 German silent horror film, directed by Robert Wiene and written by Hans Janowitz and Carl Mayer. Considered the quintessential work of German Expressionist cinema, it tells the story of an insane hypnotist (Werner Krauss) who uses a somnambulist (Conrad Veidt) to commit murders. Concentrating on the theme of authoritatianism, the film features a dark and twisted visual style, with sharp-pointed forms, oblique and curving lines, structures and landscapes that lean and twist in unusual angles, and shadows and streaks of light painted directly onto the sets.

Kracauer sees the theme of tyranny as central to the Caligari: Stairs lead to hierarchy, power is represented by enormous chairs. He even sees Caligari as ‘a premonition of Hitler’ (p72) He ‘uses hypnotic power to force his will upon his tool –a technique foreshadowing, in content and purpose, that manipulation of the soul which Hitler was the first to practice on a gigantic scale’ (p73). He views the fair (or carnival) as a location of ‘anarchy entailing chaos’ (p73). Whilst Kracauer accepts its place in the film is as a setting for escape and freedom, he believes it unconsciously refers to the chaos of the era, the chaos that births the Caligari character.

The depiction of authoritarianism can be unfolded by detailed arrangement of the visual elements. The funfair “as a central motif in expressionist cinema” (Coates, 1991, p28), is a suitable location ‘for bringing art and entertainment together before the public’ and ‘to all mankind, rich and poor’ (Robert, 2004, p183). It can be interpreted as a miniature of German society. From this, the public’s attitude towards social issues is also disclosed.

The scenes of a little monkey might explain this argument. It appears twice in the funfair, right before Caligari’s two introductions of the somnambulist. The monkey’s owner is grasping its tail in hands the whole sequence, signifying his dominance on this adorable creature. To my mind, the monkey is similar to Cesare who is used by the master as a tool, while its owner is comparable to Caligari who indulges himself in governing people regardless of their pleasure and freedom. However, the most heartbroken fact is the problematic reaction from the citizen. They either overlook its existence, or stop and make fun of it without noticing its pain. Its scream seems to be translated into a sort of hilarity in the visitors’ eyes. Accordingly, the ignorance and cruelness of society are connoted in the film. People’s unawareness of their own miserableness signifies their characteristics of the kind that “‘thinks’ only in crude generalizations” and “no longer has the ability to make clear, self-determined judgments” (Brockmann, 2010, p45), clarifying another reason of the authority’s excessive manipulation.

Additionally, the consistent adoption of circular iris is another sign to demonstrate the dominant position of Dr. Caligari. As long as he shows up on the screen, “the shot opens in darkness before a circular image expands to fill the screen” (Robert, 2004, p183). In this way, no matter what the composition of Caligari is, the focus of the audiences is always on his face, which contributes to the representation of authoritarianism and the tyrant’s desire for attention. Plus, this circle of light also appears at the end of this film in the director’s face, echoing the return of Dr. Caligari's capital dominance.