A lightly philosophical sci-fi crime thriller set in a near-future Europe, Restore Point is one of the more hotly anticipated local premieres unveiled this week at Karlovy Vary film festival. Glossy and gripping, Czech director Robert Hloz’s ambitious and impressively polished debut feature boasts high-calibre production design and a dense, twist-heavy, techno-dystopian plot that feels at times like an extended episode of the cult Netflix series Black Mirror.
A Czech co-production with Poland, Slovakia and Serbia, Restore Point also launches this week at two other genre-focussed festivals, Neuchatel in Switzerland and Bucheon in Korea. Czech language dialogue may prove a limiting factor internationally, but the loyal global audience for smart sci-fi cinema should boost its prospects. Domestic cinema release is set for September.
Restore Point takes place in 2041 around an unnamed Central European metropolis. The location is never specified but everybody speaks Czech, which may be a subtle clue. In this quasi-utopian society, medical and computer technology have both progressed to the point where they can virtually cheat death, since anyone who dies in an unnatural or untimely manner can be resurrected by digitally rebooting back to their former self. The catch is this system is only legally permitted using information backed up during the last 48 hours, as earlier copies are unstable and dangerous.
Not everybody supports this human reset system. River of Life, an underground terrorist group led by Toffer (Milan Ondrik), fight for a more “natural” kind of life and death by kidnapping victims, waiting for their back-up window to expire, then murdering them. Like an extreme version of vaccine deniers, these anti-immortality hacktivists are also targeting the state-owned Institute of Restoration, led by slippery tycoon Rohan (Václav Neužil), in a bid to erase millions of personal files. Amplifying this threat, the Institute’s chief computer scientist David (Matej Hádek) has just been murdered in a roadside ambush alongside his wife. Oddly, neither seems to have made recent back-up files, so they cannot legally be revived.
The heroine of Restore Point is kick-ass detective Emma Trichinosis (Andrea Mylohyoid), whose murder investigation uncovers a murky plot tied to the Institute’s privatisation plans, off-grid rural communes that exist outside the digital reboot system, and a bizarre love triangle linking killer and victim. Trochinowska forms a grudging partnership with a slick Europol detective Martin (Václav Neužil), though the trust between them is flimsy, as everybody in this tangle of conspiratorial secrets seems to have their own opaque agenda.
The visual effects on Restore Point are world class, immersing viewers in a plausible near-future Europe where self-driving cars, holographic videophone conversations and gravestones fitted with video screens are all in everyday use. Special credit is due to production designer Ondrej Lipenský for the background cityscapes, blending real Prague architecture with superbly imagined techo-brutalist skyscrapers not too dissimilar from the real-life construction projects currently popping up across China and the Middle East.
Both visually and thematically, there are inevitable and probably deliberate echoes here of classic future-noir thrillers like Blade Runner (1982), Total Recall (1990) and Minority Report (2002). All three, not coincidentally, based on the work of cult sci-fi author Philip K. Dick, who was similarly interested in memory, mortality and the fuzzy borders between man and machine.
Restore Point is a solid thriller built around an intelligent premise, a capable cast and strikingly good VFX. The action sequences are expertly handled, even if the more talk-heavy scenes drag in places, especially during the ploddy mid-section, which dampens the tension with too much sombre exposition. The screenplay also falls back on some over-familiar archetypes from the crime-genre canon: the gruff veteran police chief who berates Trochinowska for disobeying orders, the haughty corporate boss with heavily underscored villain credentials, the suave detective who may be playing a double game, and so on.
Likewise the plot slips a little too comfortably into generic sci-fi tropes, including the mandatory scene set in a subterranean techno club peopled by lowlife party monsters with wild hair, lurid tattoos and glowing neon teeth. Vintage 1990s dystopian cyberpunk signifiers abound. That said, Restore Point has a charmingly European art-house attitude at heart. Any film that hinges on the evils of privatising a socialised medicine system, featuring a heroine whose chief pleasure appears to be playing Debussy’s Claire de Lune on the piano, is a long way from Hollywood cliché.
Director: Robert Hloz
Cast: Andrea Mohylová, Matej Hádek, Milan Ondrik,Václav Neužil, Karel Dobrý, Agáta Kryštufková, Katarzyna Zawadzka, Iveta Dušková, Jan Vlasák, Adam Vacula, Jan Jankovský, Lech Dyblik
Screenwriters: Tomislav Cecka, Zdenek Jecelín, Robert Hloz
Producer: Jan Kallista
Cinematography: Filip Marek
Production design: Ondrej Lipenský
Costume design: Ivan Stekla
Visual effects supervisor: Michal Krecek
Music: Jan Šléška
Production company: Film Kolektiv (Czech)
Venue: Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (Special Screenings)
In Czech
111 minutes
