MacHeads


Title: MacHeads
Rating: 3/5
Genre: Documentary
Director: Kobi Shely

“How has the Mac changed your life?”
“It kept me isolated, it kept me from having a wife, it kept me from having a life.”


Religion. Sexism. What is our purpose on Earth and how did we get here. These are all well known topics for debate, and all are pretty well covered, but this hour long documentary tackles a more modern debate; Macs vs PCs. Despite what I've often thought it's not a simple debate, and it seems it doesn't really have an answer, but yet there are fanatics for Apple products beyond what you probably thought. Repair shops half-jokingly nicknamed “triage” where caring users hug and caress their products in the waiting room before gently handing them over to the repairmen and 'mac parties' where the bearded men in slacks dance the night away. This is a journey from the companies origins and early development, the days where they nearly died out entirely and the early user-based communities all the way to the launch of the iPhone 30 years later.

It would be easy to spend all its time showing you pictures of fanatics doing ridiculous fanatical things – and it seems they had something of a hard time trying to show their devotion without making them look ridiculous – but this is no comedy. Written by a mac fan, it's clearly a piece intent on getting his word spread out and if not convert then comprehend his side, and in and amongst the erotic love – not limited to “We wanted to build a computer you wanted to sleep with” and more kisses planted on cases than I've seen all week – and outright unfaltering worship were some actual arguments being made. Yes, they were almost entirely insane but they were under no illusion that they were anything but part of a technological cult. What other company sees people camping out for the best part of a week just to get a new phone, or barging through double doors not nearly wide enough like closing city gates from a zombie flick for the chance to maybe hear about some new product.

The million dollar question, and I'm under no illusion that this was anything but a hard sell, is will you see me buying an apple product in the future? To put it bluntly, no. I'll wait for them to do their revolutionising then wait for another company to iron out the kinks and sell it at half the price. People loved their Mac products for the personal feel they had with it; the intimacy of the community and the conventions and gatherings, and this is argument is not lost on me. I have if nothing else a greater respect for their early days and innovations, but as this film can't help but point out, this no longer exists. The Cult of the Mac is a 40+ club without a purpose beyond reminiscing about how 'in their day things were different.' Say hello to the faceless organisation no different from Microsoft. Well, it is a little different; it's more expensive and gives less user control. Call me crazy but I think i'll pass.

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