The documentary “A.I. At War” radiographs aesthetical, political, and geographical war zones. It does this in a very complex way, which is fully capable of rendering the remarkable density of the present, the origins of which lie, in fact, in a very simple mechanism. Indeed, journalist and director Florent Marcie’s flash of inspiration pertains to the “co-optation” of a cutely designed robot – a smiling face -, which accompanies him in various conflict areas (from the Middle East to the civil unrest which shakes the streets of Paris), where he travels with his camera. Let us not make hasty judgments, though: the robot is a very serious toy, one of the most technically advanced models of the moment, capable of integrating a variety of types of information in its virtual brain. Hence Sota, the robot, will soon become a reliable partner for the filmmaker – and his overly human reactions, since they cannot be faked, will represent the counterpoint (or the complement) of the extraordinary images we’re watching. Through this paradoxical alliance of forms of intelligence (natural intelligence sets the context, while the artificial one offers interpretations), “A.I. At War” affirms itself as one of those rare movies which shed deep insight on the current state of society, inventing a new way of looking at things, which questions everything without respite. (Victor Morozov)