I read a very brief blurb about this movie and thought it sounded like a fun anti-AI romp. Whew boy, was I mistaken.
The blurb wasn't technically wrong about anything, it just omitted a whole lot. Such as the furry slugs that everyone keeps. But I am getting ahead of things here. It had a setting that drew a bit from Soylent Green and Pete Townshend's Lifehouse. The world suffers from draught and a mega AI computer, The Head, is keeping humanity alive. A murder occurs at an immigration facility where outcasts who refuse to "plug into" the computer's neural network of human consciousness are being detained. Things then get weird as the cop doing the murder investigation, amongst other things, slowly uncovers a plot to take down our AI overlord.
Water is scarce in this world with The Head rationing it out and, in general, running the lives of humanity. This scenario a real 70s dystopian feel to it and it's paired with a 1980s look. The mohawk perm threw me off temporarily but I eventually recognized Andrzej Konopka, a Polish actor whom I'd seen in a few movies and TV shows such as The Border, Pakt, and Colors of Evil: Red. He took on strong Zaphod Beeblebrox vibes when his hard boiled investigator, Djonny, donned that zippy one-piece overall outfit. And just when you were getting used to that vintage sci-fi look, he changes into a kilt with a bedazzled sporran that acts as a holster. The costume department surely had a blast working on this movie.
The cars were all autonomous and it seemed that the prop master had unearthed a cache of 40-year-old Mazdas. I flashed back to Hobo With a Shotgun and its fleet of K Cars upon seeing them.
Anyway, our investigator goes to the immigration facility and gets paired with a woman whose ears would make Galadriel jealous. I do not recall any attempt at an explanation as to why she has elven ears nor do I recall seeing anyone else with them.
So you've got a murder investigation going on. Djonny hones in on Rana, played by Noomi Rapace. When he's not sleuthing, Djonny can be found at home with his son Zen who sleeps with one of those aforementioned furry slugs. At one point, his wife, Ayka, goes to a club and sings which apparently temporarily disconnects her from the neural network and she loses contact with the AI. This leads to bleeding from her right nipple which, in turn, leads to a mastectomy, only they remove her left breast. A scene with Ayka removing her clothes and writhing around her kitchen floor follows.
If all this sounds bizarre, it was. Jan somehow can transform himself into a tiger which leads me to believe that while The Head is a real megacomputer in the story, the characters themselves are living in a world created by it. Or was the tiger just a metaphor for an interior state? Jan discovers that Rana isn't wired into The Head and she pays the ultimate price. In the end it is Jan's wife, Ayka, that is revealed to be the rebel mastermind. Furious, Jan once again transforms into a tiger and attacks Ayka, killing her.
A mighty strange tale, I found it to be intriguing. The more surreal plot elements were confusing but made me contemplate exactly what I was watching rather than my mind simply moving onto the next bit of story. A bit of Phildickian techno dystopia here, a dash of Cronenberg there, and maybe a dose of Lynchian dreamlike surreality, Hot Spot had a unique sense of fun about it.
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