Please Hold gets my vote for Oscar for best short film

Yesterday I saw the short film Please Hold, which is up for an Oscar this year.  It tells the story of Mateo who is arrested by an automated police drone while on his way to work, and incarcerated by a series of bots and drones that work for a high-tech automated prison company, never seeing or getting to talk to a human.  Like the protagonist in Kafka’s The Trial, the charges against Mateo are never disclosed.   Having spent two hours trapped in Comcast’s automated bot hell this past Friday, I can relate.  It’s happening more and more in modern life.   It’s also reminiscent of Sartre’s No Exit.  Contrary to Sartre, Please Hold shows us that Hell doesn’t require other people, modern automated bots are sufficient.