The Mechanical Bride - Review

The Mechanical Bride is an ultimately horrible documentary that only scratches the surface of its topic by attempting to shock, and is just unable to inform. Like it's subject matter, it is pieced together and not there yet.

The opening credit sequence has the most artistic merit.

There's this TV show on the Food network where teams have to make an desert/cake sculpture to fit a certain theme. These culinary sculptures are outstanding but the crazy part is that these sculptures weigh a lot, and must be carried over to the judges table to get graded. In a few of the episodes, the cakes come crashing to the ground during the final carrying stage. That's a bit the case with The Mechanical Bride; a documentary 10 years in the making that just doesn't hold together -- you can't take ten years when it comes to covering technology.

This documentary whose premise is supposed to inform you about the world of Synthetic Love, Love Dolls and their evolution into the sexosphere, falls flat on its face. It does so by establishing, of all things for a documentary, a protagonist. Davecat, an ornate young man speaks out about his relationship with his doll Shidore-Chan. The first interview is so promising, with him mentioning that at a young age his mom lost him in a store, only to find him engaged in conversation with a mannequin. Interesting, right? That's only after a segment of a Los Angeles sex convention where people are squeezing boobs on synthetic love dolls and making lewd comments.

From there, the downhill is abrupt, with Davecat speaking liberally about his relationship to his doll and seemingly being taken as de-facto from the documantary's creator as an Archetype of doll lovers and immediately putting him in the driver's seat. It's obvious that like his doll, Davecat loves the camera. He later goes as far as to say that he is also an Otaku (with an incorrect definition of the word), pushing actual North American love doller's further back into their closets and hinting to how little of this information is being validated. It's unfortunate because Davecat, has become somewhat of a poster-boy of the topic over the years. Information on him is also dated, having appeared on TLC lately and announced that he has ordered a second love doll, while the dated documentary would lead you to believe he will be with this same doll forever.

It is truly painful to hear Davecat speak; making statements like saying that his Doll is half European, half Japanese. Saying that when he dies, he will be cremated with his doll and the ashes sent to both Europe and Japan -- I would love to see the funeral business that will accept to gunk up their over with silicone. Davecat also speaks about his trouble finding an Human girlfriend  (Maybe if women didn't see him lugging around and speaking to a 100 pound everywhere he goes, that would be a start.). It's the fact that these things are left in the final edit that really dent the statement that this was a documentary created to promote acceptance of Love Dolls and their owners.

There seems to be no real research being done, only interviews with various people in the profession of writing about, creating or repairing love dolls. One of the interviewees is blatantly high (stoned, specifically) during his interviews: you can tell that he really finds what he says immensely interesting. There is however some great stock footage of old movies being shown and speak much more about the topic that the narration or interviewees can... and those are from the 1920's to 1960's.  The Japanese segment is way too short, and practically a segue which in this case is edited to start when Davecat mentions Japan as highly accepting of Dolls in popular culture.

The doll as a substitute for a lost one was probably the most promising angle of the documentary, interviewing a very smart and sensitive older man about his love doll. It then then fizzles down again with a segment that seemed a little wonky: A man in his living room presenting his components for a mechanical love doll accompanied by music that is clearly intended to poke fun at the interviewee, who's poor daughter is obviously embarrassed by her father's shoddy sub-par work.

In the end, most of it should have gone to the cutting room floor and just be left being a documentary about RealDoll (which occupied most of the movie) and the German aspect of doll creation. The final segment visits ASFR (Alt.Sex.Fetish.Robots), but seems to be there just to be the final note in a crescendo of 'weirdness' and delivering the final blow of alienating everyone in the film as more weird than when it started.

This documentary is  a step back for both documentary film and Doll Lovers.