ANON

US, 2018, 100 minutes, Colour.
Clive Owen, Amanda Seyfried, Colm Feore, Rachel Roberts, Sebastian Piggott.
Directed by Andrew Niccol.

Perhaps the main draw for audiences for Anon is the fact that it was written and directed by Andrew Niccol who made such an impact 20 years earlier with his science-fiction film, Gattaca. He also directed quite a range of films including The Lord of War, In Time, The Host, Good Kill, as well as writing screenplays for The Truman Show and The Gemini Man.

In many ways, the science-fiction is presented in Anon in a low-key way though for human existence, the premises are highly significant. The science fiction is that everyone is under surveillance, that there are data-records that can be used in all kinds of ways for safeguarding as well for manipulation.

Clive Owen, in his kind of world-weary mode, plays a detective who is trying to uncover a murderer, using the data, but encountering a young woman who enters into his life who has no data footprint, Amanda Seyfried. The atmosphere for the film is not action but tension in exploring each of the characters and their interactions.

Andrew Nichol usually offers science-fiction or futuristic scenarios which are not meant to be adventure stories but rather reflective experiences.

1. Futuristic science fiction? Internet and surveillance? Crime and detection?

2. Work of the writer-director, from the 1990s on, imagining the future? Science fiction – and a touch of the apocalyptic?

3. The outlines are familiar city, the buildings and landscapes, the river, suburban streets? The interiors of offices, apartments? The musical score?

4. The technical aspects of the film? The frames and the information about everyone in the street, the background, their business? The extent of the files? Are being photographed? Stored in archives? They’re being examined, the importance of hacking, of eliminating memories, of fabricating memories, of forcing people’s focus, controlling what they saw, real and imagined? Memories of George Orwell in 1984 and B Brother, and the society going well beyond? The possibilities for policing and control? The possibilities for hacking, manipulation?

5. The focus on Sale, Clive Owen at his most serious, as a detective, for such a surveillance society, concerned with crime? The scenes of his walking the street, the audience seeing what he saw, the audience seeing all the information about the people that he passed? His own personal life, the separation from his wife, the death of his son, his going back to the images and has memories, indicating with his wife, her wanting to leave the past in the past?

6. So will and his professional work, the team, their personalities, future police and detection work? The interactions, the meetings, speculations? They’re watching the files? The murders and deaths, the end of files? The range of expertise, the up-and-coming experts?

7. Sal and his seeing the woman in black, no information about her? The range of deaths, the characters, their life files, their crimes, the hand in the black glove, the shootings? The visitor asking to see the file of his son, is standing on the edge of the building, falling to his death? The use of such files?

8. Sal and the decision for him to go undercover, as a businessman, creating his memories, changing his name? Wanting the woman to make contact? Sal and his sexual behaviour, the woman, the encounter with her out information to contact the killer? For eventually coming, her signature, Anon? Eventually meeting, her personality, her demands, cash? The lack of personal life?

9. Sal the case, the woman and her being able to raise memories, change memories, and kill the unwelcome contact? The alleged non-traction, the growing attraction, their meeting, the apartment, the sexual encounter and the consequences?

10. The reaction of the police, the discussions with the chief, Lester and his talent? His being part of the undercover plane, the woman discovering him, killing him? The effect on Sale?

11. The woman infiltrating cells memories, changing, eliminating memories of his son? The interactions between the two, her playing psychological games? Her altering his memories, his fantasies, the corridor on fire, shooting the neighbour? The police and their apprehension, Lester’s death, Sal being suspended, yet his hallucinations, the episode in the street with the car, being told all is clear and his crashing?

12. Sal becoming more desperate, the contact with the woman? The revelation that she was being manipulated? The showdown, the apartment, the guns, shooting? The young expert and his hacking and control? His death?

13. The film as a warning fable about the use of surveillance, the abuse of surveillance, his possibilities, making files on everyone, photographic and film files, archives – and they’re being manipulated? Ominous for the future?