Dog 51

Every day our dystopian future gets closer. The new French science fiction film from Cédric Jimenez (The Stronghold) offers the latest glimpse into our future. A predictive AI overlord named Alma uses facial recognition, GPS tracking, and anything else in her deployment to bring crime to a halt. The tactics Alma uses in her war on crime will be familiar to many Americans right now; thankfully, the film is in French, which means the president and his cadre of hooligans will never watch it and find inspiration from Alma’s even worse ideas.

A near-future Paris is divided into zones. Zone 1 is where all of the money is, so naturally, it is the safest and most secure. Things are mostly good in Zone 2 too. Salia (Adèle Exarchopoulos) polices the zone and has a bright future in the police department until she gets wrapped up in a cross-zone investigation into the death of Alma’s inventor. She gets Zem (Gilles Lellouche), a much older Zone 3 officer, to escort her through the impoverished third zone where it’s always rainy and the sun never shines.

Continue reading at the Boston Hassle.