Director: Agnieszka Smoczyńska
Writer: Robert Bolesto
Stars: Andrzej Konopka, Noomi Rapace, Reika Kirishima
Synopsis: As a private eye investigates a murder in a future world of sentient A.I., his identity and marriage suffer a hypnotic meltdown.
There isn’t a term I hate more in film criticism than “big swings” or “swings for the fences,” because what the hell are you actually talking about? What constitutes a “swing” in a movie? Because it deviates from a preconceived “three-act” structure or decides to have a few unwieldy images and ideas? As far as I’m concerned, art isn’t monolithic and a movie can take different forms. It doesn’t need to adhere to anything in particular, or any notion of film theory, to address (or, more aptly, captivate) its audience. Many might feel the urge to describe Agnieszka Smoczyńska’s latest movie, Hot Spot, as a “big swing,” but what exactly is the Polish filmmaker swinging at? As far as I’m concerned, there are no swings (let alone big ones) to be found in this tedious but oddly intoxicating nothingburger.
After a world premiere at the Fantasia International Film Festival that left many audience members perplexed and allegedly led to walkouts, Hot Spot (which was itself developed as one of the biggest titles born out of the festival’s Frontières Market) finally arrives in cinemas with little to no fanfare. One can see why – the movie presents a dystopian future where an A.I. entity dubbed “The Head” rules society, and the auteur behind one of the best genre films of the past decade, The Lure, does nothing with what seems like an already tired premise. Instead, she follows detective Jan 623 (or Djonny, played by Andrzej Konopka) as he investigates a murder alongside his partner, Maria (Filippa Kaye).
They investigate, find the suspect, and resolve the crime with little to no urgency. Or do they? Because during their examination of the crime scene, they meet Rana (Noomi Rapace), a refugee also known as a “Cyber Witch,” who can jump into people’s minds and make them see things? Is that it? Because Djonny can also do this? I’m sorry, this is where the movie lost me, irrespective of an aesthetic that’s always at the precipice of drawing us into a desolate world where Artificial Intelligence has depleted all resources and destroyed the environment.
The case doesn’t seem to be the primary importance of Hot Spot, but rather Jan’s dissociation as his mind begins to unravel after a first contact with the Cyber Witch. After that, well, he becomes a tiger. I don’t really know how we get from Point A to Point Z7, but he becomes a tiger. I also don’t know whether it was intentional that the protagonist looks exactly like Tiger King’s Joe Exotic, right down to the animal-inspired wear, but it definitely seems like Smoczyńska thought about this long in advance.
I say this because after each public execution is aired by the A.I, it finishes the live stream with “Thank you for your attention to this matter.” Which political figure repeatedly says this sentence in our era? It can’t be a coincidence, now, can’t it? So why in the hell does Jan look like Joe Exotic? And why does he transform himself into a tiger? What has awakened in him that forces this metamorphosis?
Who knows, because Smoczyńska refuses to lay out any of the questions that she introduces and never gets back to. We’re a far cry away from The Lure, a genuinely alluring genre-bender that I saw almost a decade ago and still think about to this day. Hot Spot wants to be a maximalist affair where we’ll ponder the significance of its images long after the credits have rolled, but as soon as I’m done filing the review you’re reading right now, I will never think about it ever again.
The thing is, though, I also had a genuinely interesting viewing experience. I can’t say I appreciated what was on screen, but I definitely had a more thoughtful time viewing Smoczyńska formally experiment in ways she hasn’t done before than her previous effort, The Silent Twins. This is a movie that refuses to kowtow to basic notions of film structure and even image-making. It’ll frequently introduce new ideas in the middle of another one, hoping you’ll run with it. I didn’t, but one specific concert scene certainly made me think the movie would amount to something more. The way she links recurring close-ups of an eye “awakening” to the film’s larger canvas took my breath away.
But the way in which she clumsily blends Blade Runner, Dune, Akira, Total Recall, Mad Max (and Tiger King, for some reason) makes the thing look like an algorithm was fed these science-fiction movies and wrote a film based on concepts they’ve seen in all of them stitched together, without understanding what any of these films actually meant. It’s a real shame, because Smoczyńska is a talent I want to champion. I was so happy when the Fantasia premiere for the movie was sold out, less so when I heard the chatter from people who attended it, as yet another soul-crushing venture from a director who has peaked at their feature debut and never made anything worthwhile ever again.
The one net positive is that it’s a much better mind trip than Nicolas Winding Refn’s Her Private Hell, which also premiered at Fantasia, because it isn’t much concerned with saying something. It just wants to make the audience feel an emotion. I certainly felt many emotions watching Hot Spot. Bewilderment. (Unintentional) laughter. Complete and utter boredom, and, finally, relief that I would finally be able to leave the theater and that my time wouldn’t be wasted like this ever again. Whoever says this wildly ambitious, but horrendously developed, sci-fi joint is a “big swing” should understand that no film is ever the same, and that this vague term should be retired once and for all…
