Reflective Encounters

“Backflip is the latest offering from Nikita Diakur, whose previous work includes the Encounters 2017 Grand Prize winner Ugly that similarly eschewed the generic conventions of CG storytelling in favour of a uniquely clunky spectacle of wire meshes, garish colour theory and frenetic character work. In a stylistic sense this new film follows in these footsteps, albeit paired with a simpler meta premise in which Diakur represents himself through a rudimentary character model that has been infused with automated machine learning prompts in the hope of perfecting a backflip in a series of virtual settings.

What ensues is a charmingly lo-fi parade of digital pratfalls as the director’s avatar wrestles with its own physicality and that of its surroundings. It is a protracted journey – repetitive though not tedious – of floundering and thrashing about that alternates between humorous, endearingly pathetic and unexpectedly poignant. Though ostensibly a film examining the technical processes at play and the potential ramifications of AI in general, a curious humanity begins to emerge. In some respects analogous to the creative process – or, indeed, life as a whole – we come to root for the character’s success and warm to his indefatigable spirit in eventually achieving his goal, regardless of how arbitrary it might seem.”

— Ben Mitchell