I just finished watching Paranoia 1.0. While this film is not going on my list of all time favorite films, I did find it very entertaining. The filmmakers have nothing to be ashamed of. I was particularly struck by the similarities between this film and Orson Welles' 1962 film of Kafka's The Trial (Le Procès). The Romanian locations do for Paranoia some of what the Yugoslavian locations did for the Trial. Paranoia gives a cyberpunk angle on the Kafkaesque theme of the internalization of social structure, particularly the mentality of consumerism. Although Kafka did not explicitly address consumerism, I think he might if he was alive and writing in the 21st century. The sub-themes of sexual guilt and infection are very much from Kafka. And the police are especially Kafkaesque. I also detected the influence of David Cronenberg, especially his media-related films Videodrome and eXistenZ. I think there was also a little bit of Kubrick influence. I saw this in the neighbor's AI project which sort of a existential, postmodern, frankensteinian, Edvard Munchian version of 2001's Hal and AI's David. He goes "Aaahhhhh ..." You might say the same thing after watching this movie, especially if literary/philosophical sci fi/fantasy is not your bag.
Review of One Point O
