09/11/2022 - Julián Génisson proves in this hallucinatory comedy that he is a magician of hypnosis, a one-of-a-kind creator and an unusual chronicler of the disturbing reality we live in

Inmotep [+see also:
trailer
film profile] is a comedy of intrigue about real estate agencies and the stock images that are stored on Internet servers. It is always good to start at the beginning and make things nice and clear: Julián Génisson’s film, premiered in the New Waves section of the 19th Seville Film Festival, is a very strange thing. And it is strange because it is unusual. It is hard to compare to any other film and it does not imitate anyone's gestures in order to be original. Génisson's is a rarity that is not a poser or trickster. He does not want to be special in order to attract attention, to appear more intelligent, sensitive or clever than anyone else. And that is why his cinema is essential.

The Inmotep experience lasts just over an hour. From the very first image, the audience can see that this is not just any film. At the beginning, a camera moves uncontrollably through the rooms of a dilapidated building, a mechanical voice simultaneously narrates a philosophical theory about the brain, its perception of space and how this absolutely conditions the way in which we understand our environment and relate to it. Shortly afterwards we meet Marc, a guy who lives in the grey, crazy city that is Madrid in 2022. The young man picks up men in suits at the airport and drives them to their destination. An innocent interaction with an employee of Inmotep, the mysterious real estate company that also gives the film its title, is enough to turn Marc's life upside down and plunge him into an intrigue of cosmic proportions.

With unconventional dialogue, hallucinatory electronic music constantly playing and relying on seemingly anodyne, even anti-cinematic images at times, Génisson creates a hypnotic artefact. The emotions provoked in Inmotep are many and very disconcerting. The director is an expert at connecting seemingly opposing concepts and sensations. So it is completely normal to go from feeling a certain excitement watching two young lovers enjoying their first sexual encounter to, immediately afterwards, gritting your teeth in disgust as you listen to one of them stretching out their limbs and making them crack. Inmotep also features reflections of apparent depth capable of shedding light on the most unfathomable mysteries of our existence camouflaged in videos with a tacky YouTube aesthetic. These are just examples, but they illustrate Génisson's uncanny ability to devise a wildly unique proposal using elements that would be simple, everyday, bland, useless and uninteresting in the hands of any other creator without his talent.

Clearly Inmotep requires some effort from its viewers and is also likely to be too demanding for some. However, Génisson has skilfully captured the suffocating everyday life of a city like Madrid to create an unusual fantasy-costumbrista tale. It is sure to have many supporters who will find a new obsession in Inmotep, a float to which they can cling to in order to stay afloat in this mass shipwreck that the first decades of the 21st century have become.

Inmotep is a production from Apellaniz y De Sosa and Tasio.

(Translated from Spanish)