Themes: Technology Run Amok, Experiments Gone Awry, Women's Friendship
Main Cast: Tilda Swinton, Tilda Swinton, Tilda Swinton, Tilda Swinton, Jeremy Davies, James Urbaniak, Karen Black, Al Nazemian
Release Year: 2002
Country: US
Run Time: 85 minutes
Plot
In this offbeat sci-fi-drama, Rosetta Stone (Tilda Swinton) is a scientist specializing in biogenetics who has made a major breakthrough in artificial biological engineering. Rosetta has created a type of Self-Replicating Automaton, which looks like a human being, but is in fact part machine and part living organism. In order to survive and reproduce, Rosetta discovers her SRAs need certain human genetic compounds that are found only in male semen. Hoping to kill two birds with one stone, Rosetta programs one of her SRAs, Ruby (also played by Swinton) to seduce men Rosetta has found through a website offering paid "fantasy dates," which will provide both needed materials and ready cash. Ruby brings back used condoms, and shares the contents with her fellow SRAs Marine and Olive (both also played by Swinton). However, after their assignations with Ruby, the men find themselves with a strange illness that leaves them with skin outbreaks and the inability to perform sexually. Two health investigators (James Urbaniak and Karen Black) begin interviewing the men infected, which sends them on a trail leading back to Rosetta and her research lab. Meanwhile, the more Ruby comes in contact with humans, the more she finds herself falling under the sway of human emotions, and she finds herself falling in love with Sandy (Jeremy Davies), a shy man working at a photocopying center. Shot on digital video equipment by acclaimed cinematographer Hiro Narita, Teknolust was screened at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
The film is about the scientist Rosetta Stone (Swinton) who puts her DNA into three Self Replicating Automatons (S.R.A.s). These cyborgclones must habitually go into the real world in order to obtain a supply of Y chromosome in the form of semen to keep them alive. Unfortunately, their periodic treks into the world seem to leave the men they obtain the chromosome from with a strange virus that overtakes both their bodies and their computers.
