The question of consciousness

After reading some interpretations of The Piano tuner of EarthQuakes, I want to share my take, as I think that people generally try to understand this film like they do any other film when they really shouldn't.

To me, this is a movie that poses questions and doesn't give any answers. Most films we see just tell a story, often times a story with certain implications that are designed to make the audience think, often a film is deliberately vague so that the audience has to come up with its own answers, but it's about giving answers non the less.

I think that this film is different, at least on one of the levels it can be understood. Looking at the story and the developments that take place is the traditional way of watching a film and you can approach this film in such a way, but then you'll miss the deeper questions tackled by this film.

(Spilers)
There are several hints there, most obviously right at the beginning, before the film ever started when this quote is shown: "These things never happen but are always"
Or when Felisberto tells us that he wasn't born.

So how can this be? "These things" are a series of events, how could they not have happened?
Well, they could be a dream for example.
Apart from the film being very "dreamy", there are also hints pointing into that direction, for example Malvina telling Felisberto that she's neither alive nor dead, but somewhere in between.

But can dreams always be? Probably not. At least not in any meaningful way.
The answer is given at the very end, when we see Felisberto and Malvina as part of an automaton. If "these things", i.e. the events of the movie, are merely product of this automaton, then they never happened, and from the perspective of those in the automaton (at the very least Felisberto) they always are (and there cannot be anything else). The temporal element would basically evaporate. The automaton IS "these things", always.

The next reaction would be of course to dismiss the movie as pointless. What's the point of sitting through a movie only to be told in the end that it was all a dream? We usually tend to take this as the ultimate slap in the face of the viewer.
In the case of The Pinao Tuner of EarthQuakes, this would however be to rash a conclusion. The movie is not pointless, because it's not about telling a story or giving answers, but about asking questions.

The main question is of course that of consciousness. What is consciousness, are we actually conscious or could it all be an illusion. And as a result, the follow-up questions are: Is there free will, or are we just gears in a giant machine.

The movie is full with allusions to these questions. Are we all just part of a big metaphorical automaton? Are we like the Megaloponera foetens whose brain tends to be taken over by a fungus? If a fungus can take over our brain (and by extension our consciousness) can more abstract things like ideas or music do the same? Or are we the fungus? Can consciousness be achieved by something technical like an automaton? Was the "automaton-Felisberto" in the end conscious, or was the apparent self awareness just an illusion, "programmed" into the machine? Could our consciousness be an illusion even if the universe wouldn't function like a giant machine?

So to me, this film is a big set of questions, wrapped in a fantastic experience with beautiful images and sounds, capable of absorbing you into this dreamlike world. In that sense, The Piano Tuner of EarthQuakes has to be understood on an emotional level. Let yourself get absorbed by the film and don't think too much about the story and what answers could be hidden in there, but rather about the implications that go beyond the film itself and the questions that come with it...