FROM her high-rise in a future Kuala Lumpur, where goods flow freely, drone-propelled, while people stay in their apartments, Unoaku - in a brilliant, almost voiceless performance by Okwui Okpokwasili - ekes out her life. There are herbs on her windowsill and vegetables growing in hydroponic cabinets built into her walls. If she is feeling lazy, a drone will deliver a meal that she can simply drop, box and all, into boiling water. Unoaku's is a world of edible packaging, smart architecture, living rugs that she spritzes daily-and profound loneliness. She lives by herself, and so does everybody else. Though Remote was filmed during the covid-19 lockdowns, it would be a mistake to consider it just another "lockdown movie". Unoaku's world is by no stretch a world in crisis, still less a dystopia. Her vibrant apartment -I want her wallpaper and so will you - is more refuge than prison. Its walls move to accommodate Unoaku, giving her at least the illusion of space. If it hadn't been for the covid-19 pandemic, we might well be viewing this woman's life as a relatively positive metaphor for what it would be like on a long space journey. One imagines lunar or Martian terraformers settling for much less.
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