 |
| Review by Rich Redman |
In the near future, national borders have closed but the need for cheap labor and a direct mind-machine interface pave the way for virtual workers to login from anywhere.
Memo Cruz (Luis Fernando Peña) cobbles together radios and computers on his father’s farm in Mexico. The border wall closed off the river that used to water the farm, and the rations are not enough for the farm to prosper.
Though his father demands more water everyday through the cameras and microphones at the border, Memo sees this as hopeless and dreams of another kind of life, any other kind.
In this hyper-militarized world, Memo’s kludged-together radio appears to be a terrorist communication center. Rudy (Jacob Vargas), a naturalized U.S. citizen and drone pilot, executes the order to destroy the terrorist headquarters, and kills Memo’s father.
With nothing left to hold him to the farm, Memo goes to town in search of a job. He finds a “coyotek” to provide implants Memo needs to work. Memo then finds a job remote-operating construction robots in the U.S.
Luz (Leonor Varela) meets Memo in a bar. Luz makes money by uploading her memories of experiences and stories that she’s heard. She uploads some of her conversation with Memo, and discovers that her memories of him are very profitable thanks to a mysterious person in the U.S.
Luz continues seeing Memo and uploading his stories, he continues working despite the known side-effects of the implants, and meanwhile Rudy struggles with his guilt over the strike on the Cruz family farm.
That synopsis does not do justice to Sleep Dealer.
Ranked in the top 20 of the 100 best Sci-Fi films by Esquire magazine, this movie won a feature film prize and a screenwriting award at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival (it was also nominated for a grand jury prize there). It’s got four other nominations, and two other wins, to its name.
I saw Sleep Dealer a few months ago for a couple of reasons.
First, it kept coming up on my Netflix list. Second, I like movies from outside the U.S. that look at U.S. politics and global activities. I enjoy getting a different perspective on my native country. Third, I saw a list of low-budget, limited distribution, independent scifi films that rated Sleep Dealer highly.
For the record, I watched several movies from that list and I did not like them all (Juan of the Dead and Robot & Frank were great, Timecrimes was pretty awful). Sleep Dealer was so good that I volunteered to write this review. It deserves a bigger audience!
Aside from the good acting, the direction and the script are, as mentioned, award-winners. Yes, the special effects sometimes cut a few corners. It’s nothing jarring or pervasive.
Where the movie clearly leaps ahead of its competition is in how carefully it thinks through its ideas.
Sleep Dealer takes global political decisions to the micro level, showing how those decisions can impact the lives of individuals like Memo and his family.
The way the border wall cuts off water needed by farmers is obviously stupid, both because exceptions could be made for farmers and because technology makes the border wall itself irrelevant.
This movie doesn’t punch you in the face with its messages, but you find yourself piecing together moments in the movie for days (in my case, months) after you finish watching.
Sleep Dealer slyly points out that the U.S. insatiable hunger for cheap labor means that immigration reform is a waste of time. The very corporations that finance political campaigns subvert the immigration laws rather than raise wages enough to make jobs attractive to native workers.
Building a wall is symbolic and doesn’t do anything but anger those it symbolically shuts out.
Sleep Dealer starts slowly, but quickly builds interest and action as the lives of the three main characters intertwine. Its ideas are better thought out than those of higher budget productions.
If you have the option, watch it in Spanish with subtitles turned on. The subtitling is well done and easy to read.
