Ganesh Yourself

In Mumbai, a robot resembling the Hindu god Ganesh answers the questions of the faithful during the festival held in his honour. Priest, astrologer or activist, anyone can operate him remotely and momentarily espouse his traits. “It is said that one day Lord Ganesh will take on a new form to absorb all of the world’s misfortunes…” This form, this Bappa (“father”), whose face is a screen that changes to fit the person talking, was designed for the film by Emmanuel Grimaud, a filmmaker but also anthropologist and robotics researcher at the CNRS. A fairground attraction, the voice of truth and a metaphysical interface combined, Ganesh 3.0 above all else gives words a free reign. On the one hand, there are those sitting in the hidden seat, who reveal to the microphone their ambitions for power, their humanist hopes, or egomaniac fantasies. Then there are the children passing by and the zealous believers, who are more suspicious than most about the shocking materiality of this hi-tech god. “In his previous form, he was fine. Here, I can’t tell if it’s a true god or a false god…”, confides one woman. “People buy tickets to see you, but you must approach Ganesh with a pure heart”, says a young boy… Who is human? Who is divine? Where is the limit? Far from documenting credulity, the film finds in Hinduism, as radiographed at the end of 2014, a sort of Pascalian wager. (Charlotte Garson)