"Sleep Dealer" is not a cool explosive sci-fi with popcorn catering, nor is it a particularly unconventional sci-fi sci-fi. To a certain extent, it is quite satisfactory (with a serious sci-fi concept), but you will find it after a closer look. Many things are not fully explained."Sleep Dealer" is not a cool explosive sci-fi with popcorn catering, nor is it a particularly unconventional sci-fi sci-fi. To a certain extent, it is quite satisfactory (with a serious sci-fi concept), but you will find it after a closer look. Many things are not fully explained.
I think the real goal of the director is not to show the worldview in the film, but to try to dig out some deep-seated things. Even the story itself is not his focus.
Director Alex Rivera is a New Yorker, and he put the whole film environment in Mexico. As described at the beginning, with drought, dust and no future, people here live like corn in the dry land. The curiosity of the protagonist Manmo brought a disaster to the family, but the bombing that destroyed his family turned into a live show, which made Manmo painful and had to embark on a journey to the city. He neither has the face to stay in his hometown, but also wants to fulfill his original vision.
The story began to narrate under this premise.
In the near-future world structured by "Sleep Dealer", Mexico is blocked and turned into a living area for the poor. They cannot leave from here-just as Manmo's father said, our past is under our feet and cannot be watered With them, we have no future. However, the most vital resource "water" is controlled by the outside world. Dams and machine guards have been built to prohibit ordinary people from approaching. The high price of water makes it more difficult to grow food. In this environment, the younger generation has to move to cities to make a living.
This led to a channel from the outside world to the blockade of the world including Mexico.
Controlling water sources represents the forcible interference of external powers. In fact, the outside world does not want to see Mexicans grow food, hoping that they all become their own workers, working in factories day after day, earning wages to feed themselves, and reducing people. Real contact with people.
The setting of this world pattern alone is enough science fiction.
If one country raises another country in captivity, looking at the current social situation, it seems like a fantasy?
Now that the global economy is integrated, it has become the norm for countries that have developed to different degrees to show gradients and mutual cooperation and trade. So is Alex Rivera's setting nonsense? it's not true. Looking through history, whether it was Japan, which was forcibly opened up by Western powers, or the Qing Dynasty was forced to sign a treaty of bereavement and humiliation, these are things that have actually happened. This is the meaning of Alex Rivera's design of the environment in Mexico. Many people in Mexico probably only know two things, one is the taco taco, and the other is the Mexican drug lord with various backgrounds and villains. Although many people didn't say it, what everyone thinks is one thing-Mexico is a dangerous place and may be killed by drug lords at any time.
Is it really so?
Is our seemingly certain information correct?
Internationally, it is not the country that defines a nation or a country, but the power that holds the right to speak. This is a reality that cannot be changed no matter how beautified.
Alex Rivera is using this seemingly bizarre technique to get people to think, is Mexico really what the public opinion says?
This is not just a question of defining impressions, it is about whether everyone can truly think independently and clearly, instead of using the impressions that the outside world has told you to consolidate and continue to spread false facts.
In "Sleep Dealer", the protagonist Manmo, like all other young Mexicans, has only one place, a remote factory.
They can't even touch the unreachable world on the ground. They can only stay in the factory, plug in the interface in their nerves, and remotely help the outside world build a city. Even so, they have to bear the risk of sudden death caused by possible overload. The other heroine, Lutz, is a "writer" who sells her own memories, constructing her memories into images and putting them on the Internet for people to pay for viewing. Both of them are in the same difficult situation. People in the outside world use them for consumption and entertainment, but they are not willing to touch them.
In order to block and prevent them from "poisoning" the outside world, Mexico was surrounded by a solid wall, and it was impossible to escape from it.
This wall has a dual meaning. It not only represents the captivity of the internal world like Mexico by the outside world, but also means that the gap between the two sides is completely irreparable due to technical barriers. Mexicans cannot escape and can only stay inside and fight with them.
In this way, a subject that science fiction often talks about is also brought out.
Can technology really make humans live better?
It is a force that does not distinguish between good and evil. It can be rain in time during a drought or a missile that destroys Manmo's house. If the advancement of technology only makes it easier for some people to control and oppress others, then is science and technology still the gospel of mankind? The fortress formed by technology can not only protect some people, but also block other people, and even if they need to destroy another part of them, they don’t have to do it themselves. The other person will die under your gun if they can’t even see your face. .
Humans’ self-questioning and worries may never stop.
From the perspective of perception and experience, "Sleep Dealer" is really not friendly. Whether it is a plot that is not tortuous and eloquent, or those special effects that have stayed more than two decades ago, it is painful. But its important meaning does not lie in entertainment itself.
"Sleep Dealer" is more like proposing a theme for viewers, so that viewers can better diverge their thinking.
In Mexico’s difficult life, the wall is a blockade for some people, and a protection for others. The entertainment of the outsiders, the blood and tears of the people inside, the untouchable future, the past that is being destroyed...
He put forward so many heavy topics, each of them pointed to people's hearts, and the significance of this film is also here.
Using science fiction to express the great worry about the status quo, we can't help but reflect on what we are used to.
What is the purpose of the terrorist-like bombings in the play? Are all anti-human?
When we easily use a string of words to define a region and a nation, are we too arrogant and devalue them too much?
Under desperate circumstances, can we still stand in the past and use ourselves to link the future?
Maybe in a not-so-distant future, everyone will stand on both sides of that wall and part ways.
I hope that day will never come.