An abscess on the gum is not a matter for telemedicine, says someone who should know. Angela (Zoë Kravitz) believes her dentist, but still refuses a personal visit for root canal treatment. The corona lockdown triggered her anxiety disorder, she can’t leave the house. Her contact with the outside world is limited to views from her spacious Seattle loft, where she watches her lover and neighbor Terry (Byron Bowers). Even a joint taco at the food truck in front of the house is not possible because of Angela’s panic.
An updated Courtyard Window, Steven Soderbergh’s lockdown thriller Kimi begins with a damaged psyche rather than a broken leg as the reason for isolation. A possible murder is also not long in coming, although Hitchcock’s references shift to Brian De Palma’s Hitchcock homage “Blow Out”. The murder does not take place on the visual axis, but on a digital soundtrack.
Angela works for a tech company that is as flimsy as it is successful, which offers an Alexa-like device called Kimi: an everyday utensil that doesn’t even seem so futuristic anymore. Their job is to analyze recorded misunderstandings between humans and machines in order to optimize the interaction. When she uses a few practiced clicks to filter out a fairly clear threat from a soundtrack, her routine is abruptly interrupted.
The big, bad world that Angela has locked out, it’s coming to her all by itself. And the young woman has to recognize what her dentist has known for a long time: no matter how much computers may carry us through everyday life, as much now happens through data transmission instead of physical contact, as many things we can clarify via online calls – it is not possible without a body . The dental problem can be diagnosed remotely, but not treated. And the possible murder can be perceived in the digital space, but not proven.
Paranoia-Thriller
And so Angela has to leave the house and go to the company headquarters to report the case. And because this case leads, as is typical for the genre, to the high reaches of the tech company, “Kimi” turns from a hacker chamber drama into an analogue paranoia thriller. Soderbergh, who is also responsible for camera and editing under a pseudonym, gets the data moving with a rapidly accelerating chase. And proves once again that his films get better the more reduced, B-movie-like they are. With narrative economy efficiency and technical perfection, he translates the story written by “Panic Room” author David Koepp into precise images that remain pervaded by an exciting rawness, are never just slippery.
It’s almost been forgotten: In 2012 Soderbergh announced a five-year sabbatical, from which he returned early in 2016 with the star-studded crime comedy “Lucky Logan”. Since then, Soderbergh has been busier and more adventurous than ever, having directed seven films and one series in the last five years, including the iPhone-filmed thriller Unsane, an improv comedy starring Meryl Streep (Let Them All Talk) and the “Mosaic” series, which was also launched as an interactive app.
Unfortunately only video on demand
Unfortunately, “Kimi” is only available again as video-on-demand on numerous platforms, although it would look good in the current cinema program. The premise of the film is well known, but like Koepp and Soderbergh, this idea is subject to a whole jumble of current debates – from big data to the pandemic and lockdown to #MeToo and street protests – and adorned with genre motifs from film history, that’s pretty awesome.
As in the dentist scene, there is always a hybrid configuration at work, an oscillating between digital distance and analogue proximity that runs through to the casting decisions. Angela is as disembodied as a character as Zoë Kravitz is physical in her game. This interplay culminates in a grandiose showdown in which Angela becomes a kind of “Kevin alone at home”, only with smart home support.
What began in front of the computer ends with the defense of one’s own loft and its window front facing the courtyard in real body horror. A spectacular reconciliation between algorithms and bodies, which casually and organically generates a romantic happy ending from the data fed into the film. [Jetzt als Video-on-Demand]