2002-04-23 - 6:40 a.m. teknolust Last night was my first movie viewing of the film fest. After two days of helping make other people�s film going more pleasant, I was ready for some entertainment of my own, thanks. The movie I chose: Teknolust, starring Tilda Swinton and directed by Lynn Hershman Leeson, a local filmmaker who most recently released "Conceiving Ada." I loved this film with its sly humor, inside geek jokes, HDV-created super-saturated colors and amazing performances from Tilda Swinton in the four lead female roles. It was the perfect start to my festival film-going. It made me giddy. We�ll get to the film in a moment� Part of the fun with film fest is they bring out an interesting cast of characters unlike those you typically see at your local theaters�and, since this is San Francisco, people have learned to expect the unexpected� I sat reading my SLOW food magazine/newsletter while awaiting the start of the film. As the place was filling up, I suddenly heard the woman seated directly behind me accost the man who was sitting down next to her about what his scarf was made from: "Is that feather? Or some sort of animal? I�m allergic", she hissed at him. It was a magic scarf. Fully synthetic. Didn�t really go with the rest of his outfit, but it was hardly dangerous. I�m allergic to nature in most of its forms, yet I don�t ask people to lock their Christmas trees in the closet when I come over, or acost people about smoking even though it makes me cough up a lung in tight quarters�life in the real world is all about compromise. After a pitch from the membership department on joining the film society, a woman stood up in the balcony and introduced herself. Everyone in the theater dutifully turned and looked at her. "I am tired of this City raping me," she proclaimed, provoking applause and cheers from the crowd. "I am trying to be open but I am tired of having to look up at license plates to figure out who is doing this to me," she continued. As the crowd whistled their approval for her performance art, she asked "None of you understand what I�m saying, do you?" After several hecklers in the crowd answered back "No", she said "Maybe I�m just crazy then�" Uh-oh. Suddenly the audience got a clue that our friend in the balcony might not have been a performance artist. Rather, she could have been having a break from reality. That�s when a guy a few rows from me stood up, breaking the tension by saying: "Hi, I�m Scott. I�m from Cole Valley," making everyone laugh. He followed up with "I had a pretty nice day today, but, I could use a hug." Everyone clapped and a woman seated near him got up and gave him a hug. By the way, I like the fact that we assume performance art first and craziness second here. Hell, people assume performance art over just getting from place to place. On the surface, Teknolust is the story of Rosetta Stone, a bashful biogeneticist, who downloads her own DNA into an experimental A.I. program, creating a trio of Self-Replicating Automatons that live in a color-coordinated condo where they spend their time in seclusion, Web surfing, mainlining protein and watching "motivational tapes" (a.k.a. classic movies) that shape their sense of the "human." Ruby, the most outgoing SRA, has her own e-dream portal, and goes out at night to seduce men for their manly juices, which she and her sisters shoot up in order to keep functioning. That said, the film opens with this beautiful animation of dna and binary code�we later find out these are the "baby pictures" of the SRAs Ruby, Marine, and Olive (their names are a pun on RGB color). As the movie progresses as a sort of a spin on the Frankenstein story with some biogender warfare thrown in, it becomes clear it is really a film about love. Allowing yourself to appreciate and enjoy life and all its feelings. To form attachments with others. And to embrace love. As Rosetta Stone says after the credits roll, "We should never be afraid of love." Indeed. any comments? (0 so far) previous - next recently on almostgoldsf... in defense of an email box I came to do battle with SPAM - 2008-05-17 hello 2006 - 2005-12-31 Happy Thanksgiving - 2005-11-14 bon voyage - 2005-11-05 October already? - 2005-10-09