Futurefilm Retrospective - Technotise: Edit and I

The next series of reviews on the blog will be about films about the future, mostly cyberpunk, post cyberpunk and general sci-fi works, because I believe the genre hasn't been explored in depth that much in most other blogs.

We begin with a Serbian film (no, not that Serbian film. Seriously, don't watch it) from 2009 called Technotise: Edit and I. It's based on a graphic novel by Aleksa Gajic and Darko Grkinic. It's about an art student named Edit, who lives in the futuristic Belgrade of 2074. The city itself sports a mix of traditional buildings from that region in Europe and futuristic buildings and architecture.

Edit takes care of a genius who has discovered an 'equation of everything,' that has rendered the genius silent. After seeing a visualization of the equation itself, she notices that something strange has happened to her body: thanks to a series of fortuitous events another being is growing inside her...

The society depicted in Technotise is not unlike the one we see today: the young adults of society are wandering aimlessly, looking for their place in life and engaging in hedonistic behavior and thrill seeking. The government, unlike the crumbling bureaucratic beast that we see in classic cyberpunk, is mostly relegated to the side, an invisible force that still manages to make society prod along. People still do drugs, have casual sex here and there (the introduction of artificial pleasure bots called 'plastics' helps) and do crazy stuff.

Taking influence from anime, Technotise is fully animated using both 2D and 3D animation.While not as fluid as the animation you see from Hollywood productions, the film is still pretty impressive. The fact that we see this quality of animation from the unlikeliest of sources (come on, how many Serbian animated films can you name?) makes me smile inside.

The story itself draws us slowly into the world of Technotise for the first half hour before getting down to business. There are a few weird scenes that I could have done without (there's a love scene in the middle that came out of nowhere) but luckily things don't stray too far. The plot for me was resolved too hastily in some parts, and I would have wanted to see more character development between Edit and her new 'friend.'

This is a unique addition to sci-fi animation, and one that I recommend. If you can find a copy, go and check it out.