‘A computer will not make a film as good as mine in 4500 years.’ This Werner Herzog quote acts as the launchpad for a knotted examination of generative AI, in which a machine-learning tool has been trained on Herzog’s body of work to write a murder mystery. Within a matter of minutes, the line between reality and deepfakery becomes impossible to distinguish as the meme-able Bavarian’s aesthetic is (somewhat) replicated. Who is a real actor and who is a synthetic recreation? Are the visual artefacts appearing on screen a product of machine learning or a deliberate red herring from director Piotr Winiewicz? Is the absurdist dialogue and baffling structure an artistic choice in the manner of F For Fake or a technical glitch? 

Herzog’s oeuvre proves the perfect inspiration for these meditations, given that he’s forever seemed like an alien observing humankind from afar. His preternatural communication with the limitations of people is channelled within the convoluted plotting (which ostensibly concerns the murder of a man in the fictional town of Getunkirchenburg) and the anxious discussions about how the development of civilisation is not so different to the iterative advancement of technology itself.

Much like Herzog’s deepfake, the viewer becomes a detective scouring the screen for evidence of deception. Among its misdirections and unintentional tangents into surrealist humour, one thing becomes abundantly clear: the tectonic plates of reality are shifting beneath our feet. Whether that leads to the corruption or enrichment of art remains an open question. 

About A Hero, Filmhouse, 18 August, 8.45pm, 20 August, 7.15pm; Cameo, 19 August, 7pm; Vue, 20 August, 1pm.