‘Restore Point’: Karlovy Vary Review

Dir: Robert Hloz. Czech Republic/Slovak Republic/Poland/Serbia. 2023. 111mins

Central Europe, 2041: Personal safety is now at such a premium that a backup insurance system has been developed. As long as they save their biometric data every 48 hours, so creating the titular Restore Point, humans have the right to be revived if they suffer a violent death. Of course, absolute deaths still happen. Detective Em Trochinowska (Andrea Mohylova) should know; she lost her husband two years ago. Which is why her latest case – a double murder involving a scientist who developed the restore technology, his wife, and a shady group of terrorists called River of Life – becomes an obsession in this ambitious, cerebral sci-fi thriller.

 Stylish, high-concept self-contained piece of storytelling

With its looming, angular and alienating architecture, and thoroughly considered technological and ethical future landscape, this is a phenomenal and inventive piece of world-building from Prague-based director Robert Hloz. Making his feature debut with this alienating picture, Hloz previously enjoyed a healthy festival run with his short film, the Czech-Korean co-production titled Numbers and Restore Point is the kind of stylish, high-concept self-contained piece of storytelling that should intrigue audiences beyond the festival circuit, where it screens in Karlovy Vary, Fantasia and Neuchatel International Fantastic Festival. Theatrical interest is possible, and an English-language remake is not out of the question. Certainly, Hloz is a name to watch going forward.

The actual science of the Restore Point – a technology that can achieve both a data backup and cellular regeneration – might be a sticking point for some audience members. You rather have to suspend disbelief and go with it. But what is more persuasive is the central conceit that, with the Restore Point, as with pretty much any vaulting technological advance, humans soon find a way to abuse it. In this aspect, the film acts as much as a cautionary allegory about our relationship with tech and the people that control it as it does as a slow-burning thriller.

The dogged, lone-wolf detective with an unhealthy disregard for the rules and for her personal safety, Em Trochinowska has the necessary skill set to unravel the layers and motives behind the murders of David Kurlstat (Matej Hadek), the head of research at the Restoration Institute, and his wife; neither of whom, unexpectedly, have a valid Restore Point at the time of their deaths. But the powers that be want Em off the case, handing over to a slick and slippery agent from Europol. Em, however, is not easily shaken off the scent of a crime, even if she ends up having to work alongside someone who might themselves be guilty of murder – and who certainly has no right to still be alive.

The film deftly incorporates credible future tech in the service of the storytelling: holographic figures replace crime scene photography; self-driving cars take the stress out of the commute, but also act as tracking devices. But while the writing, and particularly the use of VFX, is slick and smart, the music is less daring. A generic pulsing thriller score is intercut with the motif of Debussy’s Clair de Lune, one of cinema’s most abused and overused pieces of pretty, innocuous classical music. Still, this is a rare shaky element in an otherwise elegant and reflective vision of an all-too-credible near future.