Mars Express (2023)

Mars Express (2023) is a French animated movie that recently screened at the Fantastic Film Festival. What caught my eye was that Mars Express is firmly in the cyberpunk genre, inspired by Blade Runner and Japanese anime like Ghost In The Shell. Set in the 23rd century, the Earth is a sprawl where lower class humans are left to menial work, and are striking against robots taking their jobs. While Mars has been colonised for higher class people and a virtual shield projects blue skies.

During an investigation on Earth, two private detectives – Aline Ruby (voiced by Lea Drucker), a human, and Carlos (voiced by Daniel Njo Lobe), a cyborg in that he was human but whose consciousness has been uploaded into a “back up” android – hunt a hacker. They are working on behalf of a tech guru named Chris Royjacker (voiced by Mathieu Amalric). Even though the recon mission goes south, back on Mars they are given another case: a parent wants to find their daughter, Jun Chow, who has been studying cybernetics at the Alan Turing school; her and her roommate are missing.

As Aline and Carlos begin their investigation, they become aware of a bug affecting robots. Robots are in servitude to humans, and there are hackers who are setting robots free, often punished and deactivated by police forces. There is a potential programming code that is tied up to Jun Chow’s disappearance and a conspiracy afoot.

The directorial debut of Jeremie Perin, Mars Express has an elegant and detailed animation style. Effectively paced as a narrative, clipping through twists and turns, and drawing you into its future vision. There’s great world-building to how the future society work – such as neural-link telepathic communication between people – and there’s an involving sense of characterisation between Aline, a recovering alcoholic, and Carlos, who has difficulties adjusting to his new life as an android.

It’s got it all: a night-club scene, a freeway action scene with self-driving cars, a mansion shoot-out, strange organic cybernetics and nifty cyborg designs. Mars Express is available to rent or purchase online (through the Apple store etc). Recommended.

Paprika (2006)

Look, I can rewatch Inception anytime, but after my first viewing at the cinema, I remembered thinking, “The imagery wasn’t really that surreal for a movie about dreams.” Sure, there’s the city folding on itself, and the hallway zero gravity fight, but for the most part, it’s pretty standard stuff – the climax is a snow fortress siege, for crying out loud. Trust in Paprika (2006; Papurika), which is already tied to Inception by many seeing it as a clear influence on Christopher Nolan’s film, to fully embrace the surreal; this is a Japanese anime that is a bright, colourful, dazzling collection of images. Here, a key image denoting the collapse of dream logic into the real world is a circus parade where people start to crack up and lose themselves in chaos. Based on a novel by Yasutaka Tsutsui, Paprika was itself a long awaited dream project for director Satoshi Kon (Perfect Blue) that was was sadly his last, dying of cancer four years after its release. In a clinic where therapists use futuristic technology – a device called a DC Mini – that can allow people to observe and interact inside a patient’s dreamscape, an unknown assailant has stolen one of the devices, and is using it to create havoc, invading people’s subconsciousness and causing them to lose any distinction between reality and the subconscious. Doctor Atsuko Chiba uses it to treat patients as their alter-ego, Paprika, who is buoyant and extroverted whereas Atsuko is stern and introverted. Along with the tech crew, and a haunted police detective (who looks like J. Jonah Jameson) that Atsuko is treating, the team chase the dream assassin through guises and references. The strong underlying theme is the movies themselves as a dream machine that breaks down reality (I was delighted when a character discussed movies in a dream and they resemble Akira Kurosawa). While not as fucked up as Perfect Blue, there are still some eerie and gnarly moments, providing a dark undercurrent to the visual confetti that feels like the movie’s main aesthetic gear. I really enjoyed Paprika and its artistry, not just visually and conceptually, but also in its basic storytelling and finding moments of humanity and tension within this weirdness. Rented it on iTunes. There is a great NTS Sounds Of The Screen: Satoshi Kon mix by Florence Anderton-Scott out there on their website, basically the thing that inspired me to watch Paprika; Susumu Hirasawa composed the music for this film. Recommended.

A Scanner Darkly (2006)

Sad Keanu before the meme. Robert Downey Jnr in prime bursque rant mode pre-MCU. Woody Harrelson as hippy-dippy paranoid (naturally). Winona Ryder as subtle and caring from afar. Rory Cochrane taking his Slater character from Dazed And Confused to another deeper, darker, depressing level of Too Far Gone. A Scanner Darkly (2006), an adaptation of a Phillip K Dick sci-fi novel that uses animated rotoscoping to visualise the impossible – the ‘scramble suits’ that protect undercover agents from even their fellow officers, constantly shifting visually and clicking through visual signifiers. Even though the world is drawn and comic-book – reminiscent of Vertigo DC titles or computer game cut-scenes, an existential point-and-click – and the visuals can get trippy, the animated style is still beholden to realism and relatability, which clearly speaks to director Richard Linklater’s touch. On a basic level, this is a hang out movie: a flop-house of drug users and pushers, running into mischief during the day to day grind, comical misadventures just in an everyday expedition outside. Yet the layered interior perspective of Keanu Reeves’ character provides a deep melancholic vibe, the character’s fractured identities as drug user, undercover narc and passive witness, his participation in a world of surveillance and tracking to the point where he doesn’t even know who he is. This unique iteration of sci-fi paranoia is aided considerably by Graham Reynolds’ score and the occasional Radiohead needle drop. An underrated, beautifully laid-back and sad take on drug culture and government enforcement. Also: not having seen this since it was released, I didn’t realise that Alex Jones has a bit part where he plays a ranting guy who gets tagged and bagged by a SWAT van. Recommended.