Cyberpunk Review » One Point O {Paranoia 1.0}

Year: 2004

Directed by: Jeff Renfroe & Marteinn Thorsson

Written by: Jeff Renfroe & Marteinn Thorsson

IMDB Reference

Degree of Cyberpunk Visuals: Medium

Correlation to Cyberpunk Themes: Very High

Key Cast Members:

Simon J.: Jeremy Sisto

Derrick: Udo Kier

Howard: Lance Henriksen

Trish: Deborah Kara Unger

The Neighbour: Bruce Payne

Rating: 9 out of 10

Screencap

There are good people and there are bad people and they’re on their way,
and they want you, Simon…
The bad people can save you, but they won’t…
The good people want to save you but they can’t…

Overview: Every now and then I run across an absolutely extraordinary cyberpunk film, largely forgotten or ignored by the film going masses. More often than not, this film is foreign and never had a decent release in the US (where I’m from). One Point O (called Paranoia 1.0 in the US) is European a film that meets these criteria. Truly, you’ll be hard pressed to come close to finding an immersive film as One Point O. When you consider this was reportedly shot and produced on a budget of 1.7 Million, you begin to understand the enormity of what was accomplished here. No, you don’t get cool explosions or guns, or fancy CG effects, but you do get an absolutely awesome near-future dystopic story with a biting commentary on advertising and software development, all wrapped up in an extremely immersive, slow paced film. Everything is subordinated to the mood here, which is emphasized by the color choices and simple score. Unfortunately, I will need to be pretty vague in this review, as the ending definitely has a Sixth Sense type feel to it.

Screencap

One Point O is about a computer programmer named Simon who works at home in a truly dingy, run down apartment building in a very shabby part of the city. He comes home to find a package waiting inside his apartment, and gets worried as nobody should be able to get inside. He opens the package, only to find that it was an empty box. This happens again and again, each time making Simon more and more paranoid. One top of this, he is late in delivering his the code he’s been working on to his customer. It appears as if his code has become infected with a virus, and worse, he really has a craving for milk!

Screencap

Every character in One Point O is quirky and memorable. Udo Kier (Ralfi from Johnny Mnemonic), one of my favorite role actors, plays an eccentric robotics hobbyist who has a nanotechnology-enabled couch that changes colors and cleans itself at the click of a button, and creates a sentient talking head in his spare time (this talking head named Alex has a penchant for making very prescient phone calls). Bruce Payne (Passenger 57, Hellborn) plays a neighbor VR game maker who creates S&M VR porn experiences by acting out the scenes with various partners. Deborah Kara Unger (Fear X) plays a cancer nurse in search of fleeting humanity wherever she can find it. Lance Henriksen (Bishop in Aliens) plays a strange, zen-like repairman who always seems to know what’s going on. Finally, Emil Hostina places a voyeuristic landlord who loves to eat meat. But its Jeremy Sisto who steals the camera - he’s simply terrific playing a normal guy overtaken by extremely weird events.

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The Visuals: Like many cyberpunk movies, One Point O is dominated by a single color scheme - in this case we get a spectrum, from a yellow to pale orange to reddish-brown, with an occasional pale green as a highlight. Pretty much the whole movie (with the exception of the white convenience store which represents the corporation) takes place in those colors. Further accenting the dystopic quality is the continually run-down feel of the place. The apartment building is continually falling apart, as is virtually everything else except for the local drug store. While its clear that advanced technologies are the norm in this world, the people in One Point O have clearly been marginalized. They play with patchwork toys and out of date technology.

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The cinematography is consistently interesting in One Point O, with many using floor shots with expansive backgrounds. However, in some cases, they probably go a bit over-board on the camera angles, such as the use of the close-up phone shot of old, which actually took attention away from the story telling. But again, this is a minor gripe, especially when we include the editing, which for the most part, is also outstanding. But in watching the deleted scenes, I do agree with the director’s commentary that a few shots probably should have been included, most notably the throw-up scene.

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The Message: While I can’t go into the actual plot for fear of ruining the experience, I will say that One Point O has perhaps the most biting commentary on advertising and software development you will find anywhere. There is no question who is evil in this movie, even if they are rarely seen. Renfroe and Thorsson take to extremes and then crystallize problems they see in today’s world that form the basis for the story in One Point O. But they don’t state it in an in-your-face way - far to the contrary in fact. The story itself hammers home the message in the starkest manner possible.

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The Bottom Line: As long as you’re not looking for action or sleak visuals, but instead are looking for original cyberpunk themes done wonderfully well on a shoestring budget, One Point O is for you. One Point O is definitely a movie I would LOVE to talk about in detail but I cannot for fear of spoiling the terrific ending (maybe creating a spoiler thread in the meatspace would be the way to discuss it). The pacing has a slightly repetitive feel to it, but only because the movie progresses in a spiral pattern - the same basic pattern of events happen each pass, but events spin further and further out of control each time around. But again - go buy this movie (you’ll want to watch it more than once) - you won’t be disappointed.

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Comments

Sold. Downloading as we speak. It better be THAT good, SFAM.

Jack Thursby (from RT) turned me on to this movie, and Cypher. He of course LOVES Cypher - I liked One Point O better.

You’d probably hate me in knowing that I thought both this and “Cypher” were mediocre at best. I didn’t hate either one, but I certainly wasn’t doing backflips over them, either. Perhaps I should see them both again, based on your reviews. Sometimes my opinion of a movie changes greatly upon second viewing.

Wow! I must admit it took me two viewings of cypher to be really “WoWed” by it, but One Point O rocked my world immediately!

Was it because you thought it was slow? Part of the issue many seem to have with One Point O is the repetitive nature. This is explained I think by the fact the movie really is cyclical by design- it emulates a positive feedback cycle (increasing deviation from an initial goal state) in many ways, where each time around got wierder and wierder (Incidentally, when positive feedback loops exceed the system threshold, they completely break down). Some thought this was boring and repetitive, whereas I sort of got excited to see how the next cycle was going to deviate even further.

hard to be in the mood for such a mind crushing and dark , not appealing , and kafa-esque atmosphere movie.

I watch the 30 first minutes then the 10 last before falling asleep , and though the twisted ending and the general theme (that i understood through the imdb board) deserve a more accessible movie , to be seen by everyone

Sorry it didn’t work for you Groovykid. I fully agree that this doesn’t play like an action movie, and definitely builds at a slow pace. But the kafkaesque atmosphere works perfectly for the story, as does the pacing. Had it been much faster, I don’t think the ending would have had the appeal.

I went across this film in a second hand shop. Something made me buy that cassette. I year later I can’t name any other film that impressed me more then “Versia 1.0″ (the Russian translation of the film’s name). After all good things said here about that movie I only can add that there’s the screaming truth and undoubted topicality in it. And it makes 1.0 more rebellious and dangerous than V for vendetta with all it carnival fashists and pathetic aphorisms…

Hi Kirill, welcome to cyberpunkreview! I fully agree with you - the thought put forward in One Point O is TRULY scary, and is certainly something we can envision happening at some point.

“groovykid said:

hard to be in the mood for such a mind crushing and dark , not appealing , and kafa-esque atmosphere movie.

It’s your right not to like dark movies, but
what the hell is that propaganda of the attidude “movie is good when everyone, even most dumb consumer, can understand and like it”? It’s your right not to like movie, but how you can wish it to be made in popculture standarts/Hollywood cliches, that it would be easy to watch for whole consumer society? In my opinion, it’s completely anti-cyberpunk attitude.

I would certainly agree with the thought that there are quite a few cyberpunk movies that simply aren’t all that accessible - that many of these movies will never make inroads with mainstream audiences. But this doesn’t in any way negate their significance or quality, nor does this indicate that they should have been constructed differently. In my mind, it’s perfectly OK for a movie to only work with a subset of the population.

Maybe Groovykid is saying he wants the same themes explored in more of a mainstream format. I think this is a fine position too - and might not be anti-cyberpunk per say - but this approach should be for a different movie altogther. Different viewers have different tastes - movies rarely hit the mark for everyone. Those that do are usually involve a very oft-repeated generalized storyline done uniquely well - Lucas’ Star Wars doing the Hero’s Journey in a new way, for instance.

But cyberpunk movies often deal with potentially new threats to humanity and society at large. Sometimes, non-mainstream narrative and visual approaches are needed to carry these forward. Often a dark, oppressive setting is required - One Point O requires this, for instance. While I would certainly watch more mainstream versions of the same issues One Point O presents, chances are I’ll like One Point O better.

Which multi-national corporation wants to fund a film that breeds mistrust and skepticism of similar multi-national corporations?

The Church didn’t produce heretical artwork.

MODERATOR: Sorry about the duplicate post, but I forget to add my email address to (hopefully) facilitate my request. Please feel free to delete the previous post!

——

Just watched this last night (gotta love the Netflix!) and came away very impressed! If it weren’t for the reivew on this site I’d never have knows this flick existed, and I’m all the better for having seen it. Bravo!

One question though… any idear where I can find the throbbing slow-groove techno track that played during the “sex club” scene? I think it may be the same as (or akin to) the incedental music that you hear at the DVD’s main menu page. Help if you can? Thanx!

Hi Gridbug - thanks for the kind words! I actually get the most satisfaction over publicizing awesome, but unknown movies like this one. I’m guessing the techno band is listed at the end of the credits. If you’ve already returned One Point O, I’ll try to take a look at this and see if I can identify who this was. Just another thought - IMDB lists the following two songs on their soundtrack portion for One Point O:

“Hun jord”
Written by Sigur Rós
Remix by Hassbraedur
Performed by Sigur Rós
Courtesy of Universal Publishing

“Glands”
Written by Sigtryggur Baldursson and Jóhann Jóhannsson
Performed by DIP
Courtesy of Bad Taste (Reykjavik)

Perhaps it’s either DIP (that sounds like a techno band) or Sigur Rós.

Thanx again, SFAM! As soon as I get a definite lock on the tune I’ll be sure to repost in case anyone else stumbles across this and has the same wonderings.

I just watched this movie for the first time and WOW, it had such an effect on me, like I rarely have, meaning this film is going into my top 20 of all time.
I’m also interested as to which song is playing in the club, if anyone knows for sure please post here, thanks!

Hi Lenny Nero, glade you liked it! Hopefully you found it here. One Point O really is one of those movies that you just scratch your head and ask yourself why nobody knows about something this good.

There’s a SPOILERS discussion in the meatspace for One Point O. If you’ve seen One Point O and want some more thoughts on what happened in it, give this thread a try.

the track in the club is by sigur ros “hun jord” off a remix album called “recycle”

Welcome to Cyberpunkreview, Jope Waterfall (Or Jeff Renfroe, if this is you). Thanks for the confirmation of the song. BTW, the film in your link, Night of Scarlet Terror, looks pretty fun. When is that due to be out?

And again, if this is Jeff, let me congratulate you on creating one of the most original and interesting cyberpunk flicks I’ve seen. I’m amazed at how many people haven’t heard of it, but hopefully this too will change.

This is absolutely one of the best films I’ve seen, it is an absolute MUST for those looking for an all-around solid Cyberpunk film.

Hi Adam, agreed. One Point O definitely qualifies on my “best movies that nobody has ever heard of” list.

Heh, the AI robot head is named ‘Adam’ btw

Hi Adam, thanks for the correction. I could have swore he was Alex. I’ll have to watch this again.

hey i really like the mood of it, the backrounds music really resident evil, anyone know what kind of sweater he’’s wearing inform m please.

Well, it’s taken a while but I’ve finally summoned up the courage to rent and watch this. And bloody hell, what a movie.

Everytime I’m at the fridge now I have the compulsion to say, “Cole-ah…Five hundred!”

I may have to watch it again, too, because I’m not sure I picked up on everything the first time. I like the film’s concept, and the run-down buildings, and the supermarket and everything. Very dystopian. Some good acting and it’s hard to know who to trust or who to root for in the film.

I’d chalk this up as a good film, but not a great film. Not as good as ‘Cypher’, as I’d hoped it would be, but still very good.

I think it may just be too strange for me to handle :P.

Hi Hugo, glad you liked it on second viewing! I’ve definitely gotten far more compliments for surfacing One Point O to folks then for any other movie. At this point I should probably be getting a finders fee for all the extra sales I’ve generated for this flick!

Fabulous. I would not have found this movie… but I was searching for inspiration… things I like and Mamoru is truly one of the single best examples. Your site has great reviews… and you like many of the films I like. So when your review of this film was positive… I figured… what the hell… straight to Netflix!! A really inspiring and very entertaining film. I was expecting a let-down… but found it great all the way through. Slow… well, I like Tarkovsky so…

What was the homemade wine and sandwich all about, could it be. . . ?

Just watched it yesterday night.

COOOL movie :p

May lack visual / technological /futuristic context, but this dark and gloomy vision of a (near) future is great and goes along cyberpunk genre perfectly. So pessimistic though…

I’m not sure why, but it reminds me of Avalon: the image style / lighting, the ‘i’m alone-on-earth” and “who could i trust” mood, the computing style, this alternative vision of computing (little “steampunk” / retro like), with old school wiring and UNIX like.

The characters are great, and the hero is just fine. An anti-neo. The viewer likes him (the end may be little frustrating).

Maybe It is because i’m non english native, but i didn’t understood the final word (but i suspect it’s on purpose :p).

The music is great too. Well, excellent movie, which ends “en queue de poisson” as said in french.

Does the black delivery boy really exist anyway? I love these dream-like movies, they just confuse you and take you in another world.

Thanks you for letting me know about it !

3 movies which are close to this one:
- La cité des enfants perdus
- Naked Lunch (as groovykid said, this movie has something to do with kafka)
- Avalon

Hi Ethernode, great comments! And yeah, the color scheme for One Point O is pretty much identical to Avalon. The moods are somewhat similar in some places as well, but obviously the stories cover very different areas. And yeah, I think the delivery boy is definitely real.

OK/ So I’m no good at hiding my identity. Or holding on to my domain names. Scarlet Terror is not mine. Someone scooped cinecide.com out from under my nose while I was drinking Nature Fresh Milk.
Thanks for the sweet comments though. It’s fans like you lot that really make it worth making films that aren’t easy to make. Stay tuned for our adaptation of Bill Sienkiewicz’s “Stray Toasters”. It may take a while. But we’re getting there. Zzzzzt!

It should be noted that the above reply was a reply to SFAM’s July 6th reply. Apparently I’m not much of a punktual replier either. Holy!

Jeff, I’d turn that around to say that it’s film makers like you that make movie watching magical. We TRULY appreciate the effort you guys put into it (and I still find myself looking for “Farm Fresh Milk” at my local grocery store!). Thanks again for a great great cyberpunk flick, and if there’s ever an opportunity to do an online interview with you, just drop me a line (sfam”at”cyberpunkreview.com)- I’d love to.

And I’ll definitely be looking forward for Stray Toasters!

i would like to kno what the was the song that smo was listening to in the beging when he was programming on the computer..i would really like to know thanks

The song Simon is listening to when he chucks on his headphones is either:

“Glands”
Written by Sigtryggur Baldursson and Jóhann Jóhannsson
Performed by DIP
Courtesy of Bad Taste (Reykjavik)

Or part of the music composed by Terry Michael Hudd.

Oh and extra props to Jeff for one of the most original mind blowing cyberpunk films to date!

A slow paced movie that manages to keep me awake and leaves me with a O_o expression. Go and see it, you might love it

Great review and informating comment-play Thanks CPR!

Are u a boy? if u is send me a pic of ur dick

Awesome movie, mind blowing and really captivating.
Although you don’t get any shots or explosions, I don’t thing this movie is slow or sleep inducting.
And thanks to the people at the meatspace for helping me realize some plot facts i didn’t get by myself.

I want soundtrack from this film very much. Can anybody help me? Give some links for download if you know. I read composers and songnames list, but cant find them in internet. HELP!!!

just got this on my dvr from ifc
have seen 3 times in 2 days
yum yum

newspaper headlines FTW lol
good stuff maynard

luvs the site

what annoys me is how great everyone seems to think it is, just like the emperor’s new clothes, without actually saying what they thought the plot was, or what they liked about it (aside from the damn soundtrack.)

one point 0 is a cyberpunk film set in a near dystopian future. excellent lighting and good use of filters give this movie a great feel. paranoia and alienation is conveyed through lack of information save the slightly creepier aspects of characters lives. the storyline is sparse but follows a test conducted on the characters whilst sharing the same apartment building. altogether an excellent film (due to its frightening plausibility) when watched in the context of a cyberpunk universe. however, trying to relate it to a more or less normal future is often confusing due to the lack of obvious plot and strange dialogue. definitely requires a second viewing.

——————–spoilers below!———————-

this is more or less what I think the plot is, and THIS is why I loved the movie.

the movie begins by the protagonist (Simon J) missing the deadline for completing his program. soon after, “nanomites” are delivered in seemingly empty packages to the residents of his apartment block (supposedly by the courier as he is the only one with access to all apartments). they infect the host brain with corporate slogans and force them to repeatedly buy and consume one product. for Simon, it’s milk (even though he’s allergic). his neighbours buy cola 500 or juice, his landlord buys meat. beyond this, they struggle to lead “normal” lives, their small hopes and fears seeming mere side-effects to their new purpose of consuming. as Simon’s illness worsens, and he tries to go to hospital, the courier prevents him (maintaining the secrecy of the project) and urges Simon to complete his code as it “may help”. Simon’s code is part of the nanomite software, version one point 0, but because he (and his computer) are infected by the nanomites, the software is never finished (an obvious oversight by the corporations.) the “buggy” nanomites are later upgraded by the courier to v1.15 (who apologises sincerely) causing them to work normally for a time (in this case causing Simon to buy one of each product once) before eventually killing him.

Howard, a homeless person who Simon befriends, is left uninfected because he has no money. he works for the resistance and at the end of the movie, utters the chilling phrase “there are good people and bad people and they want you Simon. the bad people can save you, but they won’t. the good people want to save you, but can’t. the bad people, they won’t want to hurt you, they want to possess your intellectual fibre, they want your money”.

The rest, you should be able to figure out. Watch it again.

Hey I’m new at this and was wondering whats a good movie that I can start, with, preferbly cheap(downloadings better, until i can buy it) Since I’m at university and have no real way to get movies..

hcafcvafan

About the remix of the Sigur Rós song, Hún jörð:

“Recycle” will get you no hits.
“Recycle bin” will get you $50-ish Amazon pre-owned imports.
The real title, Von brigði, however, will get you this:

http://www.btmon.com/Audio/Music/Sigur_R_s_-_Von_Brig_i_1998_320_kbps.torrent.html

Sigur Rós’ second official release.
It contains remixes of Songs from “Von” (1997).
Von Brigði has only been released on Iceland.

The torrent is still active.
I rightfully assume I can post this information here without any bullshit.

I recommend fans of Deborah - The Blonde - have a look at
David Cronenberg’s “Crash”, 1996, based on the book by J.G Ballard.
It’s not cyberpunk, but the tone and topic/s hits similar spots.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0115964/

Do not confuse it with the Haggis film with the same name,
released in 2004. Too many have already made that mistake.
So make sure you buy the right one, and that it’s uncut.

http://www.contactmusic.com/news.nsf/article/cronenberg%20haggis%20stole%20my%20name_1048390

Just watched this for the first time. It was definitely my kind of movie. There’s no question this film should be classified as cyberpunk. In my mind one of the main tenets of just “punk” is the idea of “no future”, which is of course a track on the Sex Pistols “Nevermind the Bullocks..” I’ve always thought that song sums up the punk movement very nicely. Add the idea of Corporate control and a blurred line between human/non-human and you have cyberpunk all wrapped up.

But was it a “good” cyberpunk movie? I think so. It definitely had me thinking and stuck with me afterward. My only complaint is that it may have worked better as a short film… 30 mins or so. The middle bits with the “game” and the nurse seemed to be padding. I love the idea of corporations experimenting on the residents of this complex finding the right “bugs” for all the different products and then synthesizing it in the end to make them want ALL the products. That’s a really elegant story. Lance Henrikson was great and showed he can play “manic” as well as reserved and calculating (Millenium, Aliens.) I wish we got more of his character and less of the porn-game neighbor. Also, I think the android head Adam could’ve been used to greater benefit.

All in all it was a really well done movie and kudos to all involved. A sequel showing what Howard will do next would be great too!

Hi SFAM,

Cheers for this one. I enjoyed it a lot. I liked the feel of the film, the filters, the suffication. i liked the way they were being programmed without them seeming to have direct knowledge of it… and it fubar’d them up - just like the real world.

Two taglines I could see for this movie.

“You thought malware was bad NOW….”

“got milk?”

I really like this movie, had me guessing to the last minute.
Great direction, I though it was going to be another trying
to hard sci fi movie, but ended up with something quite interesting.
Correct me if I’m wrong but I think it is one of the first movies that
introduces the word ”nano”.

Very intriguing film. Just watched it through.
Could anyone make out the last lines of dialogue in the film clearly?

Also, what was suggested with the shot near the very end of the neighbor girl lying half-naked, and the zoom in on her breathing?

I read on some forum somewhere (sorry guys, no link) that Paranoia 1.0 (as in the states), was actually supposed to be part of a trilogy, but I have no way of confirming that. I think it has the makings of a trilogy. Wonderful movie. I enjoyed reading most of everyones interpretations. This is a movie that gets the gears grinding, and that my friends, is a work of art.

Had my husband hooked as a former programmer. I want a book to read it has me so involved and agree that a trilogy would be great. However, never mad the connection that it was a marketting scheme.

Interesting comments, interpretations, and… zzt… Nature Fresh Milk!

Thanks for putting the word out, SFAM.

Cheers,
Mote

While I love most of the movies on here and have been pointed to a lot of great films that I never would have discovered on my own, I have to say that this film is a fairly big let down.

A corporation infects a guy with nano-bots to get him to buy milk? It then infects him with bots that make him buy more stuff AND talk about it? I already know people that act like this. I’ve got neighbors in my building that are practically walking commercials for their shiny new cars, guys I barely know or like at work telling me which stripper they banged over the weekend, and bosses telling every pointless detail about their daughters 7 birthday party. So, basically, the movie is about a corporation that is turning people into even bigger consumer a$$holes than they are already? Big deal. Isn’t that what’s already happening in the world as we know it?

I know it’s a statement about the individual’s loss of independent thought and action to whoever wields the power, but c’mon, couldn’t they come up with something better?

Am I missing something here?

Zaphod, don’t know if your are missing but try to watch it again I found this movie really interesting when I watched it for first time years ago. The atmosphere is really great and few other movies can create such a dark world :)) I don’t know why but the other movie that does this so good for me is Avalon.

Loved this film, amazing sense of paranoia and cyberpunk. A+

How did they know I like milk?? O_O

This movie impressed me alot.
Once i started viewing i knew there was some sort of message goin to be in it. First thought it would be occulte but this actually hits the truth if you wanna see it.
Think the people who are already brainwashed dont even get the message cuz its already goin on now and will continue i think. I just hope that enough people will wake up and begin taking responsibility before its too late.
Thanks for doin such a great job.

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