Some films can get away with just being viewed once; or at least, you can watch them and then not give them a second viewing or thought for some time. Other films, however, are so intriguing that they virtually demand to be rewatched as soon as possible: they stick in your mind, throwing up all kinds of questions which only a second viewing can answer. Synthetic Sincerity is a prime example. I saw it yesterday evening at the Barbican, and rolled out of the cinema wondering what on earth I’d just watched.

Calling it a film in the conventional sense would be doing it a disservice. Synthetic Sincerity is more of a creation – one which plays with the viewer, leaving you constantly trying to work out what you are watching. It plays with the very apparatus and grammar of film, making you wonder whether what you’re watching is supposed to be real, fictional or what. Obviously that’s the entire point, given the film is a comment on reality, AI and it’s use in film; yet the effect is to leave you simultaneously intrigued, confused and captivated. Without doubt, Synthetic Sincerity is proof that cinema still has the power to fascinate, to the extent that all I want to do is watch it again.

Check out Mark Kermode’s thoughts on it here.