Spoilers for Hot Spot
I had the privilege of interviewing filmmaker Agnieszka Smoczyńska alongside actors Noomi Rapace and Andrzej Konopka in preparation for their new film Hot Spot, which releases in theaters on August 21st. The film is set in a distant-future society governed by a sentient A.I. A private detective named Jan 623, or Jonny (Konopka), is assigned a murder case involving a rebel group, and one of its members’, Rana (Rapace), wives is the victim. As Jonny, with his own identity unraveling into something primal, becomes more and more engrossed in investigating the case, he discovers that this rebel group is capable of just more than murder. Through hypnotic visuals, complex characters, and some pretty solid worldbuilding, Smoczyńska delivers something uniquely crafted to be another fresh perspective on the A. I. and the harms that it can create in our society. I sat down with all three creatives to get their perspectives on their new film and why audiences should buy a ticket.
MM: This movie is centered around a society that is heavily based on A.I. What was the drive to create a movie based around a controversial topic?
AS: Robert Bolesto [the writer] he started to work on it seven years ago, so there was no A.I how we know now; there was no ChatGPT. They [A.I] started to make fake news, so fake news was a huge inspiration for us. Then reality started to, you know, go fast, fast, and faster [progression of generative A.I.]. So we didn’t know we would talk about it nowadays.
MM: And how did you feel when you saw all these film studios start tying themselves to A.I. generated companies when you were creating a kind of “anti-A.I.” film?
AS: You know, for us it was very important that we didn’t use A.I. when we were working on the movie. I asked the Polish director from animation, which he designed the animation for our A.I., The Head, and he said, ‘No, I will not use any A.I element, any A.I. tool.’ Because we thought it would be good-of course it would be good- we wanted to make it with human beings.
MM: Another driving aspect behind the film is its characters, so Noomi and Andrej, your characters are very human in this film. I feel like both of them have an unwavering trait that sort of leads to their tragedy in the end. With Rana, it’s her unwavering morality that kind of leads to her tragedy, and Jonny, it’s his literal animalistic physicality that kind of brings about his downfall. I wanted to ask you guys if you drew on any previous roles that got you into the mindsets of these characters that you portray in the film?
NR: I would say yes, there was a little bit of Lisbeth Salander, there was probably a little bit of Mother Teresa. There was a little bit of Elizabeth Shaw from Prometheus. There’s a bit of like different ones because they’ve all been sort of exploring or thriving for something that I feel like Rana was like, sort of; she was 100% pure in her sort of drive and her conviction. Her belief system is so solid, and it’s sort of the answer that Elizabeth Shaw in Prometheus was looking for. And Mother Teresa is like, ‘What is good? What is bad? Am I bad?’ and I feel like Lisbeth Salander is a pure punk rebel; I would say that Rana has a bit of all that. And she is also a bit of me. What do you do in a world that is so detached, when people are not communicating anymore, people are not living, everything is so detached from what makes us human what is left? And it’s like love. How do we live in a world that is driven by everything that is, like, capitalistic: money, weapons, winning, strength; like everything is materialistic and sort of detached from us in a way, the core us. I loved bringing her to life with Aga and Andrezj.
AK: My previous roles helped me in the sense that I was also trying to find this sort of psychological springboard for my character. I was convinced that in the future we will be able to communicate telepathically and also use the biobots to clean. But the feelings such as fear, love, they will always stay in the human beings in the same form. So what I was really left to do was to play those feelings, to act those feelings in quite unusual circumstances and costume.
MM: Why should everyone go and see this film?
NR: Because whatever you are going to go in and see, you’ve never seen before. It’s a ride; it’s a wild ride. It makes you think and laugh, and it will shock you.
AS: Yeah, when you watch the movie, you can’t predict what is next, and also you are confronted with your own feelings and anxieties. And you can see, in a metaphorical way, the world that you live.
AK: If people really want to see what cinema in the future will look like, they have to see this movie.
Hot Spot is now in theaters everywhere.
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