Synopsis
Vincenzo Natali, who took the world by surprise with the low-budget (400,000 dollars) thriller in 1997, returns with a large-scale film that spans the United States. His new film is a ‘corporate sci-fi thriller’ that deals with a middle-aged man’s adventure when he gets entangled in industrial espionage. Morgan Sullivan, an ordinary man who lives a tedious quotidian life, is recruited as a spy by accident. Initially, he is captivated by all the state-of-art equipment and the clandestine nature of the work, but soon realizes that he has become a pawn in the rivalry between Digicorp and Sunways. However, a mysterious woman named Rita appears and tells Sullivan that he is being brainwashed and that he must reclaim his stolen memory. The film is set in the vast land of the United States, but setting for every scene is artificial. If Natali used the confined setting of his short film and debut film to portray the reactions of the characters in peril, in , he moves between several different sets to amplify the sense of peril. Having honed his skills with story boards, Natali uses ingenious sets that make it unclear when and where the story is taking place, intensifying the mystery of the drama. If depicts the process of solving the mystery rather than the cause, attempts to explain something in the end. The last scene in which everything related to Rita gets resolved is something difficult to accept readily. In , director Natali pays homage to Hitchcock’s and Kubrick’s . Jeremy Northam and Lucy Liu, who plays the role of femme fatale of film noire, turn in dazzling performances. (Ellen Kim)