British film director Michael Winterbottom mixes fact and fiction so expertly it’s hard to tell where one ends and the other begins. His refugee drama (2002) made great use of non-professional actors; the controversial (2004) featured non-simulated sex scenes; and the intimate (2012) was shot over a five-year period so the characters aged in front of our eyes. “I prefer to take actors and put them in real settings and real locations and real situations rather than create artificial locations that serve the characters,” he told IndieWire.
The technique works especially well in 2003 film , a moody sci-fi-romance starring Tim Robbins and Samantha Morton as forbidden lovers in a near future where biotechnology can change how people think and feel. The film was shot on location in Shanghai, Dubai, Hong Kong and Rajasthan, with interiors in London. “A lot of the aspects of the world of the film are amalgams of things that already exist,” said Winterbottom.
“It wasn’t about creating or inventing anything, it was just, ‘This bit is interesting,’ ‘That bit is interesting,’ and putting them together. “Shanghai is the main city, but we put the desert of Dubai around the outside of it.” The contrast between “inside” (the city) and “outside” (the desert), legal and illegal, expat and immigrant is at the heart of the story.
On the trail of a forger, insurance fraud investigator William Geld (Tim Robbins) is sent to The Sphinx, a company in Shanghai which m.
