Teknolust (2002) Reviews

• Heavily symbolic and metaphorical but not much technology or lust

  darth_borehd2005-02-21

  Don't be fooled by the provocative title and the R-rating, this film has only implied sex and only the briefest nudity. Rather, it is a thought-provoking but odd piece of work that delves into the meaning of relationships between men and women, the need to experience life's pain along with pleasures, and the different roles that we play to survive in society. The film is about a scientist who creates three computer generated/robotic duplicates of her own self. The duplicates exist in a virtual reality "safe" from the harm that the real world can levy on them. As the film progresses, we see through the interactions with the main character that they have become her alter egos. Trouble brews when they start to become self-aware and want more freedom. As I watched the film I was surprised by the apparent low budget it was made with but how it outshines most big-budget Hollywood blockbusters in its depth and scope. The acting is OK but amateurish, with occasional bad timing and wooden responses. The dialogue seems to get a little too long and pretentious at times and you have to be very attentive to catch the double entendres and metaphors in order to keep up with the script. Despite all this, it was a very good movie that proves that there is under-appreciated talent out there that Hollywood refuses to acknowledge. People that liked films like Slaughterhouse-5, Orlando, or the Handmaid's Tale would be advised to give this film a try.

• Like a Sufi tale, it has layers

  insightstraight2005-12-05

  I purely love movies which sharply polarize the viewers! These are the films which consistently make worthwhile viewing -- regardless of how we feel about the film, there are enough people with opposing viewpoints that we can consider for a fresh insight on things... "Teknolust" is this process, in small. To some, it seems dull, to others, thoughtful. Some find it obvious and crudely drawn, others see it as a symbolic metaphor. Some belabor the obvious scientific inconsistencies, while others focus on the human side of things. This movie is something of a landmark, being the first(?) feature-length production to be shot entirely in digital 24P. The sharp visuals are the result of this. (No technical stuff, but 24P is a step toward making digital video more "film-like". It is interesting to note that the director still chose to keep, and exaggerate, the "digital feel" for the production.) Tilda Swinton is definitely a draw -- one of my favorite actresses, utterly fearless, and it is delightful to see her with so much to work with. LOVED her interpretive dance -- sheer fun! Upon considering the reviews which felt the acting to be hopelessly wooden, I can see where they are coming from. But it may well be that this was a deliberate approach by the director -- doesn't Rosetta tell Ruby to be "more robotic" on her web portal, as she is starting to appear "too real"? The more I think about it, the more it seems to me that the slightly detached acting was yet another mechanism to make us question what is real and what is only presented to us. The movie features many wry little jokes -- I love that Rosetta's geneticist associate is named "Crick" (Crick & Watson & Wilkins were awarded the Nobel Prize in 1962 for discovering DNA) -- and I suspect that further viewings will reveal more. Lots of little questions, too -- like why does Agent Hopper have little adhesive bandages on his face, in different places during the movie? Does he have a disease? There are also some interesting questions raised about our reality in a digital world. How many copies are we removed from the original? At what point does copy degradation set in? (The copy center employee who is fascinated by skewed, imperfect copies is a brilliant concept for a character.) For many people, daily and digital lives are overlapping. What would it be like if they blended, with just as much casual copying and exchanging of information? (A virus is essentially an information packet.) Is "real" reality ultimately more desirable than digital "reality"? I look forward to watching Teknolust again. With an open mind. And a touch of dream. And some friends, to discuss it with afterward.

• Baffling and Cheesy

  nikmaack2005-01-22

  Why do the female computer programs have to inject themselves with sperm? And how do you get sperm inside of a computer program, anyway? These kinds of questions needs answering. It's not the sort of thing you can gloss over. This film is weird and silly and stupid. It's watchable -- I sat through the entire thing -- but it's utterly baffling. Things happen for no reason, problems are resolved effortlessly, no real tension to speak of, the science is glossed over and meaningless, the dialogue is goofy, there are holes in the plot that can swallow suns, and it's all very strange. Some of the sets are interesting, some of the acting is just plain bizarre. John Kornbluth -- the fat, bald man from "Haiku Tunnel" -- is particularly out of place. The picture's well filmed, and overall it's a very unusual movie -- but not unusual enough to be good. But not so bad that it's painfully bad. I have this odd feeling that there was some sort of metaphor at work here. Is it all about feminism? Technology? Lust? Finding yourself? What the hell is it about? I don't know -- and neither will you, if you can bring yourself to watch this film. Warning: It's cheesier than a mouse convention.

• Pale Fire

  tedg2010-01-09

  Well, it is science fiction, woman-centric in concept and execution. It features an abundance of Tilda Swinton. So it should be something worth watching. Yes? But I have to warn you off. This is written and directed by someone with such a shallow understanding of the issues involved that it is a self-parody. There are some truly interesting concepts that could have been explored if the science in this science fiction was actual science — or even if the concepts had been coherent and the writing good. The general idea here is that seduction, identity, experience, cinema and something she calls "technology" are coupled in a way that matters and is interesting and embodied in a "virus." Also that what it means to be a woman and to desire desire circumnavigates these four points of a compass. Although Tilda is more than capable of layered seduction, what we have here is manikin attraction. There is no hint of real seduction, either among the characters or with the audience. There are copious references to films, important and influential films. But they might as well have been posters on the wall as they are not integrated in any way with the film we see. The real problem is that the idea of self-aware beings, vlogs (here called "portals"), human and computer viruses, DNA, and semen are somehow conflated as if they somehow were equivalent. Tilda stars as a young woman in a university near San Francisco who is a programmer/AI researcher. She is a hidden genius who is profoundly lonely, so creates three clones of herself, independent robots consisting of code made flesh. The three each "are" a primary color and are named so. Tilda plays these women as well. At night, they "download" selected seduction scenes from movies as dreams, but are generally bored as they are cooped up in our genius's basement. Oh, our genius is named Rosetta Stone. One of the replicants, Ruby, goes out at night — Jess Franco-like — and harvests semen from males she seduces by repeating scenes from movies. The semen is needed to feed the clones and to reinforce their immune systems. Those systems are "infected" with the virus that created them — the self-replicating virus being what brought them into being. The men in question become infected with this virus, which leaves them impotent and with a bar code on their foreheads. I'm not making any of this up. After several dozen cases of infected men show up, some goofy agency is called that inspects these sorts of things, and a gaggle of incompetent males is flummoxed. At the end, the key investigator is seduced by our heroine (the real one), while our vampiress falls in love with a guy who works on a "duplicating machine" (what we would call a xerox). Oh, the investigative agency calls in a disenfranchised expert: "Dirty Dick" played by a sixty two year old Karen Black, who scopes things out, but does not interfere. So much of this is designed to resonate with me, just by the accident of what I do and who I am. But it is such incompetent storytelling, so lacking in seduction and coherence, so empty of insight that it harms, a disease. "The Love Virus," is better, as bad as it is. Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.

• A Great Showcase For The Talent of Tilda Swinton

  hokeybutt2005-07-17

  TEKNOLUST (3 outta 5 stars) Reading a synopsis of this movie you'd think it was some strange-sounding porno... or a wacky comedy. A lonely, nerdy female scientist replicates herself into a trio of cybernetic copies. In order to live, these "clones" need regular doses of male chromosomes, found only in male sperm. So the eldest copy goes out into the world, collecting samples for the sustenance of her and her "sisters". Yes, this definitely sounds like something that came out of the imagination of some sex-starved sci-fi nerd. Except... that the film was actually written and directed by a woman. So there is plenty of "subtext" and "symbolism" to "legitimize" a plot that sounds like it was dreamed up in "Letters to Penthouse". Tilda Swinton is the main reason to watch this movie... she plays the scientist and the three copies and she does a great job of making each one of them a different character. Also there is one wacky scene where the three "sisters" are doing some weird interpretive dance (all on screen at the same time) that is just sublime! Unfortunately, except for Swinton, the acting is pretty awful. Actually, Jeremy Davies is okay playing a lovelorn copy guy who falls in love with one of the copies but all he really gets to do is make cute puppy eyes at Tilda. For a comedy... the tone of this movie seems awfully sombre at times. A quicker pace and some livelier dialogue might have helped this movie become a classic. As it is, it's an okay movie enlivened by the talent of Tilda Swinton.