“She’s used to battlefields, but, when we meet her in the movie, she’s a voice of love and peace. She leads a group called the Neo-Souls, but she doesn’t want to see herself as a leader because she sees the group as a community, a collective. The Neo-Souls move in peace in a world where the only crime they commit is refusing to be hooked up to Big AI, to the Head. They don’t carry passports, they don’t have an identity that belongs to a country or a regime or a religion. They just move and walk through the world, praying and preaching love.”
For as peaceful as Rana may be, the experience of playing her has forced Rapace to confront a very different aspect of herself. “I’ve been thinking about my own rage,” she admits. “I grew up being angry at the world, at injustice and racism. This movie makes me think I want to change my approach. I’ve tried being angry and shouting and fighting, and it’s obviously not working because there are always people who are louder or crazier or more violent. That way is not working.
“So we need to find a way in this crazy world right now to meet people with empathy, with curiosity, to try to listen. I need to find a way to speak my truth but not force it upon people.”
Those questions only become more pressing when Rapace faces something like AI, a major element in Hot Spot. “We have to think about who we are and what we are,” she insists. “We’re so attached to technology and our phones. My phone is in my hand all the time, or it least it was. But I had to ask myself, ‘What about hearing your own thoughts? What about being on your own or being bored? What happens then?’
“So, I’ve been reflecting on my own behavior, and that of people around me. It’s made space for loads of conversations with really interesting people.”
Unfamiliar Forms
Although Hot Spot can create the type of change that Rapace has already integrated into her own life, she also acknowledges that such a weird, surrealistic movie can elicit a whole range of emotions. Structurally, Hot Spot follows the beats of a police procedural, in which the detective Jan learns about a crime and begins questioning suspects, including Rana. That familiar format could lend itself to misunderstandings, and Rapace is okay with that.
