Metropia: Tarik Saleh

LFF: Set in the not-so-distant future, 'Metropia' shows a familiar but menacing dystopian Europe. A continent where English is spoken throughout, surveillance cameras dominate the landscape and a web of underground lines link key cities, creating an immense network beneath its surface. Roger, a young man from the suburbs of Stockholm, is wary of the increasingly coropration-dominated world and the scary TV game shows dealing in life and death, whilst traveling (sic) on the underground makes him feel uneasy. His paranoia is further aroused when he begins to hear strange voices in his head: is someone trying to control him, and if so, why? using innovative animation techniques, director Tarik Saleh creates a deadbeat, toned out and sparse vision of the future. With shades of '1984' and 'Blade Runner' and a voice cast drawing on the talents of Vincent Gallo, Stellan Skarsgaard, Juliette Lewis and Alexander Skarsgaard, the downbeat animated sci-fi noir is consistently innovative and intriguing.

An interesting approach to a dysfunctional future - I wonder how long it would take to produce an undeerground rail network of the size that appears here - probably centuries! The story was confusing and possibly needs more than one viewing to be fully understood though this is something that will be worth the effort. The unusual animation certainly adds to the feel of the film and, for once, the stellar vocal talents were irrelevant as I recognized none of them. The film reminded me of 'La Antena' which may be reflection of the tones used in the animation - greys and blacks.