Nothingness in Alex Rivera's Sleep Dealer: An Analytical Essay

According to Andras B. Kovacs' Screening Modernism, the concept of nothingness is “a series of everyday situations where man is alone, desperately looking for something solid in a situation where his own identity is called into question.” This nothingness is created when one’s expectation reaches a point of frustration, and it is also the central concept of existentialist philosophy. This is due to the human condition, or rather, the “nonbeing of something” or of something that should be. This concept thus defines the nature of the human existence, where feelings of helplessness are faced with the repressive forces of the exterior world. Given the nature of these ideas, Alex Rivera’s film Sleep Dealer (2008) is a prominent exemplary form of the concept of nothingness. Set in the near future, it depicts a world where Mexican workers provide the United States with labor, while eliminating their physical presence. Therefore, Mexicans do not migrate; rather they are plugged into a computer to operate robots in the United States. The film highlights many issues we struggle with today, technology versus alienation being one of the more prominent themes. This essay will deconstruct and analyze the film following Kovacs’ concept of nothingness to depict the extent of which technology creates alienation through the elimination of the basic experiences of everyday life.

Kovacs states that nothingness is created from the interaction of consciousness and the world. Additionally, through nothingness, people come to define themselves. This is evident from the beginning of the film as one of the main characters, Memo, describes his living conditions. Rather than describing the physical properties of his inhabited village, he states that it is “a village dry, isolated and disconnected.” In this description, the viewer enters into Memo’s physical and mental world all at once. He wanders into the emptiness in silence, a notion that well describes his state of consciousness. In this particular scene, the director sets up the notion of alienation as the imagery presents vast and wide spaces of empty and deserted land. The viewer begins to understand Memo’s personality through his stream of consciousness. Although he is a man of few words, it does not take long for the viewer to decode his persona. This young man is detached from his personal and physical surroundings, even when his family surrounds him. As the family dines together, Memo’s lack of mental presence overshadows his physical presence. The only time the viewer feels his presence is when he picks up signals on his radio that transport him to far away places. They connect him to the outside world, to vibrant and lively cities where people are living a fast paced life, something he has never experienced. However, as he listens in on the hustle and bustle, this electronic connection makes him feel all the more disconnected.

Furthermore, as the viewer watches Memo work in the fields of the empty village, the feeling of nonbeing is furthermore explicated. Through his work, a lack of purpose and fulfillment is captured. Moreover, this notion is shown in several different sequences in the film. First, the viewer witnesses the technological and corporate takeover that has ensued, which has completely blocked the Mexican-American border. This technology has eliminated much of the everyday human interaction the residents of village experience. They are only able to speak through machines in order to obtain goods and services. This also highlights the barrier that technology has created, which has severely decreased and burdened human communication. The director translates this idea further by showing that much of the communication is between people and computer programmed machines that do not require any human control. This emphasizes the feeling of disconnection between Memo and his environment.

As events transpire, Memo’s father is killed in his home by a robot controlled by a pilot in the United States. This is due to Memo’s signal capturing radio that was deemed as a threat. Memo leaves the village in hopes of finding work outside town, and he encounters a woman who introduces him to the ‘Sleep Dealers’ factories. This woman, Luz, faces her own form of disconnection in a rather bizarre way that will be discussed shortly. Memo begins working for the sleep dealers as a construction worker in San Diego. Visually, he is able to experience a life he had never known to be possible. His previous feelings of needing to escape the village have been somewhat alleviated; yet he is always brought back to reality once he is unplugged from the labor harboring machines. This creates further confusion for Memo as he seems to be living two separate lives while inhabiting one body. He questions his identity more so than when he was living in the village. This technology has forced him to call into question the meaning of his existence. The only way he feels a sense of purpose is by sending his family the money he earns. However, it is not gratifying as he witnesses their living conditions in the hot and dry village as they are lacking water. This is due to the indestructible dam that was built to secure the border between the two countries. Here, the viewer is able to empathize with Memo’s feelings of being lost and isolated as he is stuck in world that seemingly prioritizes technology over humanity. What furthermore exacerbates these feelings is the lack of control Memo has over the way he lives his life, his surroundings, and his means of survival. There is no room for change, and everything is beyond his control.

The ‘Sleep Dealer’ factories give insight into a world where corporations have taken over the complete human living conditions through the use of technology. In the film, this is depicted in several ways. As the process of working has been previously examined, we now turn to the experience of memories and interpersonal relationships. Luz, one of the main characters in the film is involved in the memory market. She transfers her memories to a program where they can be viewed and even purchase. This technological breakthrough in the futuristic society portrayed by Rivera highlights the breaking point of communication, forming relationships, and sharing experiences. Luz transfers her memory of her meeting and interaction with Memo (photo above), and at one point the program requests that she states the truth about the experience as it can detect a lie. This is significant as later on while we enter her stream of consciousness, she reveals that she is able to tell the program the truth about her feelings towards Memo, yet she is unable to share her true feeling with him. This highlights the barrier that is created between people in terms of personal relationships. As Luz shares her memories, a feeling of alienation is created because she is not capable of expressing her true self in real life, rather only through technological means. She states that people can see what you see, therefore instead of communicating; you transfer a series of images and lines that depict your emotions. She faces a problem similar to Memo’s, which is the rarity in feeling connected. This inability challenges the formation of one’s identity as it becomes difficult to define oneself when one cannot identify with their self, environment, or lifestyle.

In his need to escape, Memo now lives a new life yet he is as lost as he previously was. The only difference in his current state is that he is more aware of the reasons behind these feelings. His work has allowed him to witness the downfall of society up-close as he is now an avid participant in the technological barrier that has been created by humans. In the village, he used his radio to escape and live as if he were somewhere else, yet now he is closer to the source of his agony. Luz described Memo as someone who is lost, clinging on to what he left behind. His new life did not help his situation as he has experienced two lives, yet neither experience has filled the void of finding his place in the world.  Rivera emphasizes these notions in revealing that the state of the current world promotes feelings of alienation regardless of a person’s location. Whether it is a small town, village, or a city, the impact of technology in displacing human necessities such as communication and everyday experiences can be felt the world over.

Rivera allows the viewer to delve into the characters’ psyches prominently through their stream of consciousness. In this form of narration, Kovacs’ concept of nothingness is truly illustrated. Sleep Dealer is deeply philosophical as it depicts the central concept of existentialist philosophy. The central characters each portray their own method of finding their place in the world. Through that method, they attempt to find the purpose of their existence. While this is a feeling that is universal in nature, and transcends from generation to generation, and civilization to civilization, it is the element of technology that truly exacerbates this concept. Technology has greatly impacted and influenced the way of life, making it harder for one to find their place in the world when much of the communication and interaction is eliminated. It is only logical that we define ourselves through our experiences with our fellow people, therefore when those experiences are marginalized; it makes it all the more difficult. This is one of the main reasons this film truly captivates the senses. It allows the viewer to enter a world that could very well exist in the near future, and without the dramatic use of special effects, we witness the possibility of our very own alienated future. Drawing on Kovacs, it is the interaction of consciousness and the world that shapes and defines our being. Therefore, living in a world where this interaction becomes so minute and impersonal, we should be fearful of finding our place and purpose.

Drawing on Kovacs’ concept of nothingness, this essay has analyzed the film Sleep Dealer, directed by Alex Rivera to expose the relationship of technology and alienation and their affect on one’s identity. To that effect, it can be concluded that the film exhibits central philosophical concepts pertaining to existentialism. The film was successful in highlighting a futuristic society where technology is the main form of work and communication, therefore creating barriers that lead to feelings of displacement and alienation. Two of the film’s main characters, Memo and Luz, have been deeply analyzed to show their different ways of dealing with the harsh conditions of this impersonal world. In analyzing these characters, Kovacs’ explicated, predominantly through their streams of consciousness. It is a key factor in their evaluation since much their thoughts are not exposed to their peers and colleagues. Hence, this process was crucial to understanding the motives behind the director’s intentions. His portrayal of the near future, a society well on its way to existence, provides the viewer with insight into his or her place in the world. Additionally, it examines the basic necessities for humans in the face of fast paced technological advances, and the way they influence the very core of our being.

Reem Al Mousawi
Ryerson University
(CPHL 710 - Summer 2011 - Instructor: Hudson Moura)

Sleep Dealer as a modern melodrama

In Chapter five of Andras Balint Kovacs' book Screening modernism: european art cinema, he puts forth his view on the difference between classical and modern Melodrama.  Kovacs' criteria for what makes a modern melodrama can be broken down into a few main ideas.  In a modern melodrama the source of the conflict in the film is not something concrete, rather it is represented by a lack of something, in other words a nothingness.  The protagonist does not have a complete awareness of his or her situation.  The protagonist has a passive reaction to the provocation caused by their situation. Finally, concrete narrative events are just representations of the greater crisis of the world that the character inhabits. (Kovacs 89, 90)  In this essay I will discuss how Sleep Dealer fits Kovacs' criteria of a modern melodrama.  I will also discuss how the same events in the film contribute to the theme of disconnectedness.

Sleep Dealers and Kovacs' modern melodrama.

“The bigger power in modern melodrama is represented by something that is stronger not by its presence buy by it's absence.”(Kovacs 89)

In Sleep Dealer the “greater power” is not some singular enemy that we can pin point, rather it is the general societal situation that the protagonist inhabits.  In the world of Sleep Dealer corporations have taken over water supplies, and people's labour is exploited using dangerous technology.  In Sleep Dealer, the bigger power is the unchangeable societal situation, where Memo has to face “...an existential lack of these positive values.”(Kovacs 90)  Some examples of this lack of values are when he first arrives in Tijuana he is robbed.  After that he gets a job, but the labour practices are exploitive.  Even his relationship with the girl is temporarily ruined when he feels he is being used by her.  All of his money is being sent back to his family, so he can't even enjoy that.  All of these things add to the fact that there is a positive values in his world.  The Greater Power in Sleep Dealer is a lack of hope and connection to people and the fruit of his labour.

       The protagonist Memo was born after the damn was built, and his community (Santa Ana) was left dependent on a corporation for it's water.  Memo never knew any other situation, unlike his father, who live before the damn was build.  For Memo “Santa Ana was a trap. dry, dusty, disconnected.”.  Memo had the sense the community was futureless and he pined for a more interesting life, and he felt no connection to the land that provided for him.  Memo's father on the other hand, was angry about the damn and longed for the old days, when he was allowed to provide for himself and his family with the fruit of his own labour.  After Memo's father dies, Memo moves to Tijuana to find work as a remote labourer and succeeds, with the help of a young writer.  He works as a remote labourer and supports his family and he now has what he wanted, to live in the city and have a more interesting life.  Despite having what he wants, his life is still hopeless, because the of lack of job advancement and the fact that the technology used slowly makes its users blind.  In Kovacs' book he describes one aspect of modern melodrama:

“We talk about modern intellectual melodrama when the protagonist finds herself in front of an existential situation that she cannot understand, and this lack of understanding provokes passivity, suffering and anxiety.”(Kovacs 89)

The father, because he has memories from before the situation was so hopeless, he recognizes the lack of positive values in his world.  In other word because he has memories of positive values he sees the nonbeing of these values, he recognizes the nothingness.  In this film we can clearly see that Memo dose not understand his situation, in the film he never seems to consider the unfairness of his situation because he has known nothing else.  Memo does not recognize his situation, as a result he feels bored, hopeless and anxiety.  Sleep Dealer fit into Kovacs' definition of a modern melodrama Because Memo Doesn't understand his situation.

       Kovacs says that in a classical melodrama Characters react at first but then “abandon themselves to pure emotional suffering”(Kovacs 89). In the case of modern melodrama he says that: “The reaction of modern melodramatic heroes to the provocation of the environment is even more passive.”(Kovacs 89)

Memo clearly fits into the archetype of a modern melodramatic hero.  When faced with the provocation of his world he does nothing in response, because there is nothing he can do.  Memo simply moves through his world not responding to provocations physically.  The forces that are causing the conflict are far to insurmountable for him to even consider doing anything in retaliation.  Memo is face with several provocations most notably when: father is killed, he is robbed, the working condition at his are exploitive.  His response to all these provocations are completely passive.  At the end of the film Memo is track down by the remorseful pilot who killed his father and the pilot want to make amens.  The pilot with the help from Memo damages the Damn in Santa Ana letting water through.  Memo plays a passive role in this plan, he merely allows the pilot to do it, and once it's done it is clear that very little will change in the long run.  Sleep Dealer fits Kovacs' idea of a modern melodrama because Memo reacts passively to the provocations he faces.

       The event that triggers the narrative in Sleep Dealer is when Memo's father is killed by an american military aircraft that bombs their house.  Kovacs says that in a modern melodrama:

“No matter what concrete event triggers the narrative action, it is but a superficial manifestation of a deeper and more general crisis for which no immediate physical reaction is possible.”(Kovacs 89)

      The Inciting incident in Sleep Dealer (the fathers death) is representative of the greater crisis in the world being represented.  Namely the marginalization and oppression of mexico and it's people by america and corporations.  This crisis also brings with it the existential consequences: hopelessness, anxiety, etc. Furthermore there is no possible physical reaction to either Memo's fathers death or the greater societal crisis.  This further show that Sleep Dealer fit into Kovacs' description of a modern melodrama.

Disconnectedness and Nothingness

       One of the themes of Sleep Dealer is the idea of disconnectedness, this idea is manifested in the protagonist Memo.  At the start of the film Memo feels bored and disconnected from the world, and he blames that fact that he lives in rural mexico.  After he moves to the city he meets a girl who he forms a  connection with but he later finds that it was partly contrived by the girl because she was using Memo to sell memories.  so even though he moved to the city he is still not able to form real human connection.  Another aspect of the film that reinforces the theme of disconnection is his job.  At Memo's job he works for hours on end and when he is finished there is very little tangible reward and  Much of his money goes to supporting his family.  The only thing to show for his hard work is his slowly degrading vision.  This theme of disconnectedness is related to nothingness in that Disconnectedness is an absence of connection.  This theme relates to Kovacs idea of nothingness in modern cinema.

Keifer Wiseman

Ryerson University

(CPHL 710 - Summer 2011 - Instructor: Hudson Moura)

Nothingness as the human experience of being

Alex Rivera’s 2008 film Sleep Dealer has everything to do with nothing. Or to put it more precisely, the film delves deeply into the philosophical topic of nothingness. Utilizing the conflict of connection (in the form of technology) versus alienation, Rivera exposes audiences to the inescapable nothingness that permeates our human existence. Whether the protagonist Memo is alienated from technology in his remote village of Santa Ana or connected using the latest technology in Tijuana, he is still faced with overwhelming amounts of nothingness.

But what is nothingness? How does one describe something that is not?

Kovac’s Genre in Modern Cinema draws attention to three of Jean-Paul Sartre’s ideas about nothingness. The first is that nothingness is “a product of human intentions and at the same time the essence of being” (Kovacs, p. 92). As such, nothingness is a central part of our world, and it is inescapable.

The second principle is that nothingness is born of unmet expectations, or the “non-being of something that should be” (Kovacs, p.92). Human expectations, frustrations and memory are the creators of nothingness.

The final Sartrian idea is the notion that nothingness is freedom. Nothingness is “an empty moment in the world where man is liberated from his past and must choose” (Kovacs, p. 93). The nothingness as the gap between what was and what could be creates the opportunity to make a choice.

Sleep Dealer encompasses all three of these Sartrian ideas. Because nothingness is a central element of human existence, Memo can never escape it, whether he is alienated from or connected with technology.

The nothingness is first presented when Memo is alienated from technology. To be alienated is to be absent. Prior to Memo’s migration to Tijuana, technology, the fast-paced lifestyle of the city, work, and etc. are all absent from his life. There’s a nothingness in their place and this nothingness presents a gap.

Furthermore, this nothingness exists because Memo has created an expectation of what could be were he not alienated. While still in Santa Ana, he uses amateur hacking skills to overhear the conversations of various node workers around the world. From these slivers of conversation, he paints a fantasy image of how being connected with the technology of the big cities will provide him with everything he has ever wanted. It is through these fantasies that he is aware of their “non-being” in his own life. He does not have nodes, nor is he living in a bustling city or working as a node worker. In their place is a great nothingness.

And in this gap he has the freedom to choose. Will he stay in Santa Anna or will he move to the city?

Ultimately, an even greater nothingness – the loss of his father at the hands of
a
military node worker – stimulates Memo to choose to move to Tijuana and get connected. There is an irony here; Memo moves to Tijuana to fill a gap created by technology through using technology. Technology is both the cause and the solution for the nothingness. It is inescapable. 

The inescapability of the nothingness becomes even more apparent when Memo moves to Tijuana and gets his nodes. Although he has filled the absence of technology in his life, he finds even more absences in its place, i.e. the absence of: meaningfulness/satisfaction in what he does, contact with his work and connection with others.

Again, the absence of meaningfulness/satisfaction is due to an unmet expectation. As it turns out, being a node worker is not the fulfilling career choice Memo had dreamed it to be. In fact, his whole endeavour to get connected was terribly disappointing; he gets mugged by the first “coyotek” he attempts to do business with, he works 12-hour night shifts to the point of exhaustion and he does not even have a proper home to retire to at night. And in the end, all of these sacrifices are for nothing.

Memo’s job as a node worker is loaded with nothingness. At the start of every shift, Memo plugs into his personal terminal and puts on his contact lenses. He no longer sees the factory environment where he really is or the other node workers standing beside him. He simply becomes surrounded by nothingness. Although he operates a robot that exists in another real location, there is an absence of contact with the environment in which he works. Once plugged in, he could be in California, or China, or anywhere, without ever actually being there. Furthermore, the robots operated by node-workers such as Memo bear little semblance to humans. They look and operate like robots. In effect, there is a complete absence of humanity when Memo plugs into his terminal and becomes a robot.

But the final and most ironic way in which Memo encounters nothingness in Tijuana is in the absence of connectedness. The very technology that was meant to cross borders and connect people actually serves to alienate them. For example, Luz states that the whole reason she became a “writer” (or rather a memory merchant) was to promote connectedness. But in recording Memo’s story and selling it, she actually alienates herself from him – as seen from Memo’s rather negative reaction when he discovers her true motives for spending time with him. The military node worker Rudy serves as another example of how technology removed the connectedness it was supposed to promote; rather than connecting him to his country and the people he is supposed to protect, the technology has alienated him from them to the extent that they become nothing more than targets – as in the case of Memo’s father. Lastly, Memo also experiences the lack of connectedness in his factory job, as described earlier. The very nothingness that incited the need for technology is the same nothingness that the technology promotes.

Throughout the movie, the audience comes to realize that the true conflict of the film is not alienation versus connection, but alienation versus alienation, or nothingness versus nothingness. In the film, the pervasiveness of nothingness is much more powerful than the characters’ abilities to fill it. In watching the film, audiences realize that the same is true of reality and that there will always be more nothingness than can be filled. Overall, Rivera successfully captures how central nothingness is the human experience of being. 

Jessica Tremblay

Ryerson University

(CPHL 710 - Summer 2011 - Instructor: Hudson Moura)

Node Life: Nothingness and Sleep Dealer

Technology has changed our lives greatly. We no longer use it just to aid us at our jobs, but rather, in many cases today, technology is the one that completes our jobs for us. Our lives have greatly become dependent on technology. With this dependency however, consequences have resulted. One main downfall of our lives revolving around technology is human alienation. The central theme of Sleep Dealer is the widely spread yet increasingly invisible prevalence of alienation in the world today that questions the affect of the relationship between man and technology.

Memo Cruz, the protagonist in this film, lives with his family in the small village of Santa Ana del Rio in Mexico. This small farming village is the kind of place that seems to be frozen in time in itself and the people living there. The only one who doesn’t blend with this frozen mould is the hi-tech, militarized dam that controls Santa Ana’s water supply. Memo doesn’t care about his town. He loves technology and dreams of working in the hi-tech industry in the big cities. One night, while playing around with his radio, Memo stumbles across something he’s never heard before; the communications of the security forces that are patrolling the area around his village to protect the dam. Unfortunately, security agents have spotted Memo’s radio intercept and concluded that it is a threat. Memo is then forced to realize his dream of leaving Santa Ana in the worst possible way when his house is destroyed in a remote-control bombing. Driven by feelings of guilt and the need to earn money to support his family, Memo leaves to the big city to find work and help his family start again. He heads to Tijuana to only end up losing himself to the “node” world. Once connected to the net, workers are able to earn money by working in factories where they build skyscrapers, care for children and the like without having to cross the border.  Alex Rivera’s, Sleep Dealer simply imagines a world of vanished identity and virtual everything where the mood is lonely and abandoned.

Alex Rivera’s artistic purpose is to show the dramatic character in a situation that lacks humanistic values which in return makes him suffer and become lonely. This lack is ultimately the reason for Memo’s unhappiness. Rivera has created a thriller of the vanishing: the character’s vanished ability to depend on themselves as their lives seem to be controlled by the modernization around them has become the source of their own suffering. Memo knows what he’s lacking but he can’t help it disappear. In the opening scene we see how Memo deeply wishes his family would leave his small village and move to the city for a better life style. His emptiness and loneliness make him a victim in this film. The dynamics of emptiness make “nothingness” the ultimate explanatory tool for Memo’s situation.

“Emptiness” or “nothingness” is an existential situation that is within him but functions as a “disease” of which he is not the cause of and can’t fight against. The title of this movie already gives an idea of disappearance of humane elements and identity. The plot is built upon a series of disappearances. First we learn that Memo’s village lacks water supply. Then we discover that Memo lacks any interest of wanting to stay in his town. Memo then loses his father after his house was bombed, forcing him to flee to the city. Then we see that after he gets his “node” job, he begins to lose his energy and self to the technology. Memo also loses his trust in Luz when he discovers that she is selling her memories of him online. The ending of the story shows that despite the village having gained its water supply back, Memo refuses to go back, enforcing the idea that he has lost his identity to his “node” self or in other words, technology.

The concept of nothingness developed by Jean-Paul Sartre is an important one in this film. The main aspect of nothingness is that it’s not only recognized when something is missing from what exists but rather it is linked to it. Nothingness has become the central concept of existentialist philosophy (Kovacs, 2008). Nothingness has become a key player in the relationship of man to the world or in this film, Sleep Dealer, man to technology. Nothingness is a series of everyday situations where man is alone, disappointed by his beliefs and expectations, desperately looking for something solid in a situation where his own identity is called into question (Kovacs, 2008). Throughout the film Memo questions why his family is staying where they are despite their poor living conditions. He is lonely in this world which is why he spends his days and nights with his technological toys. This gives him a place to run to, a place for him to let himself be, a place where he can try to find himself and understand who he is and what he is about. Him being lonely and feeling as if he belonged somewhere else is in essence the foundation of his being, of his existence as we later discover in the film. His love for technology was the cause of his father’s death yet it also saved his small village as it supplied them with water.

Nothingness is the Sleep Dealer is a human memory.  All expectations, all disappointments and all memories are tied to concrete contents (Kovacs, 2008). In Sleep Dealer, we see many flashbacks of Memo’s memories from his small village. By closely looking at these images, most of these flashbacks show images of an empty village, a waterless, deserted, lifeless and most importantly a “kingless” one. By seeing these images with those missing elements, nothingness is produced by their absence.  We also see this concept in the supporting actress. She too left home without a plan and is now empty on the inside. She introduces herself to Memo as an inspiring writer which we later discover her “writing” is not the conventional writing we know about. Rather, it is all about her memories being recorded and uploaded to the virtual net to be purchased. This shows that even the one thing she stands by and the reason why she left home has lost its reason. When someone finally showed interest in one of her uploads, that of her encounter with Memo, things brighten up for her and she sees some purpose to her “writing”. When she also learns about Memo’s family and what his father did to support them, she asked him “how did it feel like to work with something so... real?”, to which he responds with; “I guess I never really thought about it.” This again shows how the character is accepting his loneliness and is sinking more into misery as he begins to realize what he has abounded, a life that was much better and closer to the heart than this “node” life.     

From another perspective, nothingness can also be positive in the sense that it is an empty moment in the world. Between what happened to Memo and what can change in the future in empty space that Memo can shape and control its outcome.  In other words, nothingness is freedom. “In freedom man invalidates past and creates his own nothingness... Nothingness is freedom intercalated between past and future.” Nothingness created by free of choice obligates man to make a choice. After his father’s death, Memo felt responsible for what had happened to his father and decided to flee his village and find work in the city to support his family. In the city, Memo is presented as a lonely man, freed from his past to a certain degree, but forced to choose and to look out for himself. He begins to work in a factory environment in Mexico. There, they don’t make products, however, they connect their bodies to a network that allows them to control machines in America.  What the director Alex Rivera is trying to establish is this cause and effect. As the character move is this far away place, the machine moves in America is some sort of “puppetry” scenario. He is trying to make the audience see and feel how this futuristic, alienated worker, which in a lot of ways is the same way many people feel like today.  In the sense that there are people who live in the shadows, a ghost work force, like that of unrecognizable workers in our society or those who work in the outsourcing fields.

Modern art cinema tells stories about the “individual” who has lost his or her contact with the surrounding world. This film tells the story about the lonely, alienated, suppressed and helpless man who is faced with repressive forces of the exterior world. The happy ending is unexpected as it happens by chance and even then the main character was not freed from his “nothingness”. The bigger power is represented by something that is stronger not by its presence but by its absence. Memo found himself faced with an existential situation that he couldn’t understand, and this lack of understanding provoked loneliness, suffering, and anxiety. In the ending of the film however, this “modern authentic individual” accepted nothingness as the fundamental aspect of his freedom and gave up the search for traditional metaphysical values as he decided to stay in the big city and continue to work as his “node” self. The concept of “nothingness” has shaped his new self and the world around him.

Ola Jayzeh Al-Hallak 
Ryerson University

(CPHL 710 - Summer 2011 - Instructor: Hudson Moura)

Nature and Transhumanism in Alex Rivera's Sleep Dealer

Human beings are becoming dangerously dependent on technology. Many people say they cannot live without their cell phones, computers or the Internet. In the 2008 film Sleep Dealer by Alex Rivera, a bleak vision of the future is offered where the character Memo Cruz suffers the effects of a dangerous dependence on technology. The film deals with a conflict between nature and technology, depicted when Memo has nodes implanted into him and begins working at a sleep dealer (factory) and thus begins experiencing an existential crisis, a “nothingness.” Although working as a cybracero, a virtual labour worker, is the new way to make a living in this dystopian future set in Tijuana, the technology is actually the cause of Memo’s existential nothingness, and it is a return to nature that liberates him from this crisis. Sleep Dealer shows the process of Memo losing touch with his humanness by merging with technology, becoming alienated, isolated and feeling lost, alone and empty, then ultimately breaking free and returning to nature where he finds his humanness again and is liberated from the nothingness. Although Sleep Dealer is billed as a science fiction film, according to András Bálint Kovács’s Screening Modernism, it has many elements of a modern melodrama by means of the Sartrian concept of nothingness.

            Alienation

At the beginning of the film, a scene predicts the direction Memo’s life takes when his family is sitting down for dinner, and Memo is missing, absent. His family is outside in the beautiful weather (nature) and Memo is shown alone in his dark, dingy bedroom playing with electronics (technology). It is Memo’s fascination with technology that leads him to getting nodes implanted in him so he can connect to the global digital network as a cybracero, where people’s minds and experiences are joined. Yet despite this technology that merges people, Memo enters into an existential nothingness, which Kovács describes as feelings of being “lonely, alienated or suppressed” (Kovács 101), and Memo fits the description of an “individual who has lost his…contact with the surrounding world” (Kovács 101). At the sleep dealer, Memo works with others but no one seems to interact and connect with each other, they are each in their own virtual space. At one point in the film Memo spends so much time working in the factory, he begins to fall asleep. When he is not in the factory, he is left drained, empty and devoid of emotion and humanness—he is the physical manifestation of nothingness. He works so much in the virtual world that when he returns to the living world he is still not present; he is absent because the humanness is sucked from him. Kovács mentions that with modern melodramas, this experience of nothingness is a “world of lonely and emotionally alienated people” (Kovács 109) who are in “a situation, which fundamentally lacks humanistic values” (Kovács 109). The most extreme example of this is when Memo and the character Luz, his lover, get intimate and have a sexual encounter, yet it is not in the typical sense. They connect to each other with their node cables. These characters have become so dependent on this technology that the very basic human act of a sexual connection must be aided by technology. Kovács points out that this lack of humanistic values makes the characters suffer and that “this lack is the ultimate instance and reason for unhappiness” (Kovács 109) and nothingness. Memo, a virtual labour worker, Luz, a memory trade worker, and another character, Rudy, a virtual drone pilot, all become alienated and feel a lack a humanistic values because of this technology. They all experience a nothingness, an insignificance and meaninglessness in their lives. They begin to feel an angst and frustration because they are searching for something missing in them. Soon they realize it is the technology they work with that takes away from their human experience and causes their existential nothingness. The characters then try to, as Kovács says, “find a way out of an existential situation” (Kovács 101).

           Liberation

Once the characters realize they are missing a human autonomy, an independence from technology, they begin to take actions to break away from technology, leading to a more authentic, natural human emotional connection and experience. Kovács translates his concept of nothingness into “a series of everyday situations where the individual is alone, disappointed by his beliefs and expectations, desperately looking for something solid in a situation where his own identity is called into question” (Kovács 106). This describes Memo, Luz and Rudy’s existential situation. At one point Memo remarks that he does not know what he is doing anymore, he feels lost. Luz also says she lost her way after arriving in Tijuana and getting nodes implanted. And Rudy begins to question his moral identity after taking instructions like a robot and being ordered to kill a man. They question themselves and feel imprisoned in this emptiness, the virtual realty that is taking over their lives. There is a scene where Memo is on the beach, and in the shot there is a fence, a border, separating Tijuana from the outside world, and Memo stares longingly into the ocean waves. It is a border between him and nature. Eventually Memo realizes that the banality and meaninglessness of his life is caused by spending so much time connected to the digital network. Yet as Kovács’s article mentions, in modern film genres, “the individual is someone who can look through the insignificance of life and can free herself of the angst caused by the nothingness of the world and accept her own life in the midst of this nothingness” (Kovács 107). From this realization Memo and the others make a choice and take steps to break free from the cause of their nothingness, to “cross over to the other side” as they say, on the other side of the technological barrier separating them from nature. The three characters manipulate the system and use it to break a water dam in Memo's hometown of Santa Ana Del Rio in Oaxaca, and release water (nature) that was being contained and sold by Del Rio Water Inc. (technology). This act is a liberation and emancipation for the characters from their technological dependence, as well as for the locals in Santa Ana Del Rio to be free from the dependence on buying water. According to Sartre’s concept of nothingness in modern genres in cinema, this human emptiness and frustration causes the individual to be liberated from his past and can then choose freedom. Thus, “nothingness is the definition of freedom” (Kovács 106) and nothingness is the “expression of modern experience of human existence” (Kovács 106). Kovács says if the modern individual is free, it is possible only by facing nothingness, which is what Memo, Luz and Rudy are able to achieve.

            Naturalization

Though the breaking of the dam has significance as an allegory, a metaphor, for Memo’s liberation, it also shows the importance of nature and how fundamental it is to the human experience, as it is Memo’s return to nature that frees him. Water is the symbol of nature in Sleep Dealer and is used throughout the film. Water is innocence, essence, purity, vitality and life. The first line of dialogue spoken in the movie comes from Memo’s mother when she says, “We need water.” It sets up the importance of water (nature) throughout the rest of the film. Water represents a human’s very basic dependence on nature and a connection to earth and the natural world. This is very different from the population of the futuristic dystopian city, where many are dependent on technology, machines and the global digital network. Water is a free, natural resource, yet for Memo’s hometown it has been stolen from the people and water is owned and controlled by a corporation called Del Rio Water Inc., so the people must buy water. A visual shot of Del Rio Water Inc headquarters shows a large fence surrounding a shrinking lake, where Big Brother surveillance cameras attached with machine guns ensure that people pay for water. This represents the technological barrier separating humans and nature. Water is what connects all life and people. And the technology that promises to connect people is what actually alienates them. Technology replaces the very basic and natural human connection and eliminates the connection to the natural world. In a scene at the beginning of the film, Memo and his father are in the family garden, a milipa. The father is trying to teach Memo the value and importance of having land and being connected to the earth and nature. His father represents the old ways of depending on nature to subsist and survive, whereas Memo represents the newer generation that embraces technology and loses touch with Nature. Memo says that he felt his home was a trap, that Santa Ana Del Rio was “dry, dusty and disconnected” from the world. In the end, he finds that to live as a cybracero and be constantly connected to the digital network is what it really means to be disconnected—from nature and from human existence. Sartre says that “nothingness is the key concept of human relations and the relationship of man to he world…the essence of being (Kovács 106). The nothingness experienced my Memo, his isolation and absence, is from losing connection with his humanism and nature. What is missing for Memo is the authenticity of interpersonal relationships to other humans and to nature. So Memo disconnects from the digital global network he re-connects to nature by creating his own garden. Then he is no longer disconnected and asleep, no longer absent and missing, but existing in a relationship to the earth and to nature, existing again naturally as a human. The end scene’s location is the outskirts of Tijuana, with Memo in his garden, with water, watering the seeds he planted. Memo may not have found the answers he was looking for, or the ultimate solution to his existential nothingness, but at least he is able to embark on a new beginning, a new identity, to experience an existential rebirth. He says that perhaps there is a future for him back in the natural world. If nothingness is about something missing, a human frustration from searching for a something, then this new existence for Memo is a step away from no-thing-ness and a step toward some-thing-ness. When Memo breaks free from technology and returns to nature, he re-aligns himself with his human essence; he gets back in touch with his human existence.

            

The film is called Sleep Dealer because, as Memo explains, if you are connected long enough in the digital network operating as a robot, the worker falls asleep. The term sleep dealer says a lot about this existential nothingness experienced by the characters. Sleep Dealer demonstrates that the more a human merges with technology and the further away from nature they are, the less human they become. Technology alienates humans from each other and causes a sense of loneliness, meaninglessness, insignificance and emptiness, which is precisely 'nothingness' as defined by András Bálint Kovács in the article Genre in Modern Cinema. When humans lose touch with nature, they lose touch with their humanism. Sleep Dealer offers a vision of a future not so far away and unimaginable. ‘Transhumanism’ is a cultural and intellectual movement happening right now in our real world. Transhumanism supports the use of science and technology to improve human mental and physical characteristics and capacities—basically, merging technology and the human body. As our societies progress and continue to incorporate technological advancements to enhance the human experience, can the human condition exist and survive? Like Memo, will we all eventually merge our human bodies with technology and lose our human essence? Whatever direction our future takes us in, we will always need nature to remain human.

Will you have nodes or chips implanted?

Kiel Longboat

Ryerson University
(CPHL 710 - Summer 2011 - Instructor: Hudson Moura)