Metropia (Saleh, 2009)

[shariqq]

Metropia
Tarik Saleh | Sweden | 2009
86 mins



In the hands of a good director and a great cinematographer, Metropia can be a wonderful live-action movie. It could just as easily enough become a bad b-grade direct-to-video also. Tarik Saleh’s Metropia, with its peculiar technique and an eerie visual motif, is an askewed look into a dystopian future. The over-sized heads and two-dimensional movements mixed with photo-real faces and skin create a bizarre effect. This surreal effect does not wear off as the movie progresses but instead complements the mystery that the movie’s story presents. The movie raises many questions, answers too few, but it is eventually not about intellectualizing the story. Metropia is about how it is made. Nonetheless, this does not stop the director from making a jab at our increasing fascination with voyeurism.

My rating --> 3 of 5

[madali]

Metropia (Tarik Saleh, 2009)
IMDB Link

Yet another movie set in the future where big corporations/governments do naughty things to the denizens of the future and one normal man gets mixed up in the whole thing and it’s up to him to change the future to be more in line with our present.

IN THE FUTURE, Europe is fully lined via a huge metro system that links all the European countries together, giving the metro company immense power. But that’s not enough, they have made a shampoo that when used by consumers inserts a sort of bug in the person’s head whereas the corporation can hear their thoughts and send inner communications to the person’s brain, making it seem like something inside his head is telling him what to do.

The movie is all computer generation. I’m just throwing that in, because I don’t know where else to talk about it.

The film itself feels empty and cold, feeling it doesn’t have anything at all to make you care about the people’s plights. In movies, the future is always shown as lifeless and cold, unfortunately for this film, so does the plot.

2/5