The Remotes

Mit THE REMOTES knüpft Torres an seinen gleichnamigen Kurzfilm von 2006 an und entwickelt die Idee der von Apps ferngesteuerten Menschen weiter. Dabei verflicht er kritische Überlegungen zu neuesten digitalen Entwicklungen mit einer Reflexion der Kolonialgeschichte seines Heimatlandes. Wäre es nicht auch sehr erholsam, die Kontrolle abzugeben? Vor allem die über ein von Verlust ohnehin bereits ins Passive gewendeten Lebens? So denken sich die Schwestern Gillian und Eva, die den Tod ihrer Mutter betrauern, so denkt Mijares, der seine Frau verloren hat. Sie begegnen einander verhängnisvoll in dieser ockerfarben-nebelnächtlichen, visuell berauschenden Trance. (Alexandra Seitz)

Despite two decades as a major pillar of the Southeast Asian independent film scene—working as an artist, as a producer with the collective Los Otros and, of course, as a director of several features—John Torres has slyly described THE REMOTES as his first “real” film. While hardly a traditional policier, sci-fi or film noir, despite shadings of each, the self-assigned designation seems predicated on the film’s engagement with the tools of mainstream narrative cinema. Working with an elevated toolkit, including professional actors, industrial scale crew and a script, Torres nonetheless employs each element in service of a unique slow burn. Shot over several years and structured into three chapters, the languid, forking plot swirls around a mourning detective (Alchris Galura) and two mysterious sisters (Gabby Padilla and Julia Richards) who are drawn into each other’s orbit through connections with a driving app ostensibly designed as a tool for social betterment that turns out to be more nefarious than it seems. Despite Torres’s leap in scale, his film never sacrifices the human at the core of his work, offering a sprawling, affecting reflection on grief and the insidious nature of technological creep. (Jesse Cumming)

John Torres: TODO TODO TEROS (2006), YEARS WHEN I WAS A CHILD OUTSIDE (2008), REFRAINS HAPPEN LIKE REVOLUTIONS IN A SONG (2010, K), LUKAS THE STRANGE (2013), PEOPLE POWER BOMBSHELL: THE DIARY OF VIETNAM ROSE (2016), WE STILL HAVE TO CLOSE OUR EYES (2019, K), ROOM IN A CROWD (2023, K)