Notes on…

Sleep Dealer(2008)

Dir. Directed by Alex Rivera

Videodrone, anyone? It's scarily prescient in how it predicts how labour will be exploited in the global south during the age of robots and superfast internet access — aren't all those 'self-driving' cars in the United States actually being driven in real time by Bogotáns being paid $1/hour? What's more, it seems to predict that with the subaltern races banished south of the US-Mexico border, the lingering desire of the strong to dominate the weak: hence the cruel and exploitative drone TV show stolen straight out of Verhoeven. It's just a shame that the ideas-to-execution ratio on the whole production is really out of whack.

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Synopsis: Set in a near-future, militarized world marked by closed borders, virtual labor and a global digital network that joins minds and experiences, three strangers risk their lives to connect with each other and break the barriers of technology.