Mosquito state

"For all the vampiric bloodletting in genre films, I felt like the mosquito, man's deadliest enemy, was thoroughly unexplored and, after reading Michael Lewis' Flash Boys, I became fascinated by those hidden away "quants" who made high-frequency trading go. This unlikely pairing became the basis for Mosquito State. 2007 was the year I moved to Los Angeles. It now feels distant, but also strangely immediate. Many cultural events have fused with post Y2K banality, but I still recall holding the first-gen iPhone as if it were my first born...." - Filip Jan Rymsza

This year's Gérardmer Fantastic Film Festival will feature two kinds of insects, locusts (La Nuée, The Warn) and mosquitoes with this film. As much as La Nuée has imposed itself as a film event, Mosquito State leaves us doubtful. Yet Mosquito state began in an original and strong way by following the trajectory of a mosquito to a private party in New York in which Richard Boca (Beau Knapp), a Wall Street analyst, seems to lose his mind.

Set in August 2007, the screenplay by Filip Jan Rymsza and Mario Zermeno focuses on a deregulation of stock market fluctuations and shows how a brilliant analyst seems to lose his footing while his apartment is embellished by a colony of mosquitoes. Disfigured, unstable in his work, Richard Boca who lives alone in a beautiful apartment seems to have difficulties in his professional and personal life. The fact that Richard Boca sees disturbing trends: his computer models behave erratically makes his boss seem to have lost the ability to manage him while recognizing his mental capacity to perceive market trends.

As much as the practically clinical realization of the situation holds our attention, the scenario seems to be in a direction that we do not really know which way to go. Certainly in discovering this film we inevitably think of David Cronenberg's The Fly (1986) but Mosquito State would have deserved to rely on a better script and be less confused. In spite of a twisted and successful ending, Mosquito State does not manage to hold our attention.

Mosquito state
Directed by Filip Jan Rymsza
Produced by Filip Jan Rymsza, Wlodzimierz Niderhaus & Alyssa Swanzey
Written by Filip Jan Rymsza, Mario Zermeno
Starring Beau Knapp, Charlotte Vega, Jack Kesy, Olivier Martinez, Audrey Wasilewski, Daisy Bishop
Music by Cezary Skubiszewski
Cinematography: Eric Koretz
Edited by Andrew Hafitz, Bob Murawski & Wojciech Janas
Production companies : WFDiF
Running time: 100 minutes

Seen on January 29, 2021 (Gerardmer Festival)

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