Welcome back and thanks for joining me as I fill-in another country on my Letterboxd Map! This week we head to Slovakia and the not-so-distant future with… Restore Point (2023).
Title: Restore Point
Director: Robert Hloz
Released: September 9, 2023 (Spain)
Runtime: 1 hour 54 minutes
Available to stream on: Kanopy
The year is 2041.
Inequality has reached unprecedented heights and with it has come a massive increase in crime. To counteract this, Central Europe grants every resident the right to resurrection if they die violently and unnaturally.
Though one can only be brought back if they’ve been regularly saving their biometric data every 48 hours. In doing so, they’re constantly creating a restore point for themselves upon an untimely death.
One of the key architects of restore point technology, David Kurlstat (Matěj Hádek), along with his wife, are both brutally murdered. Someone even went through the hassle of erasing their last restore points from the universal hard drive.
Detective Em Trochniowska (Andrea Mohylová) winds up on the case. She initially zeroes in on a radical activist group known as River of Life. This extremist group opposes the restore point technology and actively tries to kill people before they have a chance to backup their data. These acts will, in the River of Life member’s minds, restore the natural order to the circle of life.
Now it is up to Em, along with a very shoddily restored David, to find who within River of Life is responsible for the murder of David and his wife.
As of this writing, only 4,396 members on Letterboxd have logged Restore Point (2023). I am hoping that after this review, we can see that number climb a little bit because this was a lot of fun.
Set only 15 years in the future, the production emphasizes realism in both costume and set design. The costumers rejected exaggerated sci-fi aesthetics in favor of contemporary clothing styles, adjusted just enough to suggest the near future. Meanwhile, instead of futuristic buildings, the buildings portrayed remain as they were when first built. We have cities of tall brutalist buildings that have CGI projected onto and inside of them.
The cinematography from Filip Marek is another bright spot. Restore Point is absolutely gorgeous to look at. Tight shots pull you right into Em’s investigation, allowing you to see things from her perspective. While wide shots of the city and its towering buildings, on the other hand, help to give a sense of how overwhelming and consuming technology can be.
Yes, there are some questions that go unanswered about the science and how the rules are applied. However, Robert Hloz in his feature directorial debut, builds out this world in a way that allows you to look past those questions and just enjoy the ride.
I hope we see more from Hloz going forward, particularly in the science fiction genre.
If you haven’t seen Restore Point (2023), consider this your recommendation to change that.
And if you have seen Restore Point (2023), I want to hear from you!
Leave a comment below or reach out on Bluesky and tell me your thoughts on it!
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