Movie Roundup: "Sleep Dealer"

About a month ago, my lady love and I rented some movies. She picked out a Mexican sci-fi movie Sleep Dealer based purely on the cool looking cover, and I'm sure glad she did.

[Note: Some spoilers follow, but I've tried to keep them to minor details that don't affect your viewing pleasure.]

The movie might be called a post-colonial re-reading of The Matrix, much the way Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys is a re-vision of Jane Eyre. Set primarily in Mexico, the film is set in a possible near-future where the neo-colonial corporate exploitation of developing nation labor has become nearly total; it dictates not only commercial activity but also has become the default political position and has at its disposal the full exercise of American military power. So, in other words, a logical extension of today's world.

The major "sci-fi" element is something called "node technology" -- not unlike the technology in The Matrix that directly connects the human body and mind into a virtual world. Nodes can be used to communicate thoughts directly from one person to another or through the internet (first-person documentaries produced directly by the mind of the observer/writer, for example). But in the film, the most important use for this technology is the outsourcing of labor. Workers in Mexico (and, presumably, other economically subordinate countries) hook in to robots in first-world countries like the US and perform all forms of manual labor remotely -- construction, driving cabs, busing tables, cleaning, etc. The American consumer benefits from the labor of these workers without ever having to see them and thus possibly feeling the guilt of exploiting another person; all they see is their avatar, a remote controlled robot.

This technology is made profitable and dominant by a nearly 100% secure border, which, like all other elements of imperial power in the film's world, is both corporate and military. In fact, border control and foreign military excursions have become part of the US entertainment industry: on a popular reality show, viewers watch as military drones -- remote controlled by American soldiers via nodes -- hunt down and kill "terrorists," who are more often than not simply people struggling to survive in a world where the necessities of life are controlled by someone else and who accidentally fall afoul of the law.

The main story concerns a young Mexican man who, due to various circumstances, must go to Tijuana (a modern city and central hub of Mexico's international node labor) to work for a "Sleep Dealer" -- a labor factory where workers hook into nodes that connect them to menial jobs all around the world. The factories are so-named because of the extreme, deadening exhaustion that the workers experience after their shifts.

What is perhaps so great (and disturbing) about this movie is its simultaneous technological distance from and political proximity to our world. Like the best socially conscious sci-fi, it is truly uncanny, alien and eerily similar at the same time. One of my favorite stylistic elements of the film is the gradual reveal of the sci-fi technology elements: the life in the rural Mexico of the film could be taking place today, or 50 years ago, while the world of the US is futuristic and sleek. Yet its contrast with the extreme technological development of American society is really not so different from the way real, modern life is, effectively, science-fiction to the lives lived in the rest of the world. [Hell, just yesterday I had problem installing some new software on my computer. I connected with tech support via the internet, and a technician in India took control of my desktop and installed the program for me. Talk about node technology and virtual outsourcing!]

The film also makes some unsettling points about the operation of oppression in the modern world. In order to survive, Rudy must work for the very forces that oppress him; he builds the very tools that control his life and, in effect, thanks them for the opportunity to subsist via his own enslaving. He must not only be approved to enter the node factory, but he also must enter a code just to leave: he's not even permitted to quit. The factory has complete control not just over his death, but his life as well. There are numerous other interesting avenues for analysis of the film, such as its gender politics: the effeminizing effect of the nodal outsourcing technology, which "penetrates" the worker; the way gender relations are changed via the new connections, etc. Yet the film also explores the positive aspects of such technology: its potential for creating human interconnection, the intimacy of communication between friends/lovers, the possibilities for resistance through the creation of human networks in opposition to corporate/military control, etc.

The film's cgi special effects will probably seem a little dated to 2010 audiences, but that's a minor point that will only bother you if you are really looking for it. For anyone interested in sci-fi and the various social/political issues the film deals with, it's a great movie. It would be especially interesting to watch with a film like The Matrix either by yourself or, for my teacher friends, in a class. The Matrix is also all about power and exploitation, but it takes place in a predominantly middle-class, "first-world" context. Sleep Dealer reveals that even if the beautiful and relatively privileged people of The Matrix are victims of oppressive ideology, there's another level below them. The victims of The Matrix are the rulers of Sleep Dealer; for all our recognition of our own "oppression," it relies on a further level of subjugation that can often be invisible to us when we focus only on our own suffering.

DMZ Vol. 1: On the Ground by Brian Wood


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
The story: America's Second Civil War, between the "official" USA government and an uprising of militia groups and other insurgents organized into an army of Free States. The island of Manhattan has become a demilitarized zone, a war-torn area neither side can hold and that has been turned into an American Afghanistan, Somalia, or Gaza Strip -- those that live there fend for themselves against each other and against the two sides that treat it roughly as a no-man's land. A journalism student, interning with a world-famous reporter, finds himself trapped on the island and begins his own reporting, showing the realities of life in wartime that the media glosses over.

Like a lot of Brian Wood's work that I've read, DMZ is highly political, although the sympathies of this work are harder to place than, say, Channel Zero -- it seems to be a more generalized statement against corporate government and media. The focus is the human drama and the moral complexities of life in wartime, aiming to give us a picture of the tragedies and failings all people face rather than an easily identifiable hero or villain. Also like the little bit of Wood's work that I have read, the narrative can feel a bit discontinuous, seeming to jump large swaths of time and gloss over details that may help the reader understand the connections between events and characters. The visual storytelling -- art by Wood and Riccardo Burchielli -- can be similarly choppy and sometimes over-stylized, making action difficult to discern at times. Still, an intriguing premise and worth checking out. I find myself interested in larger narrative issues and the history of the conflict, which I fear may be only hinted at and never addressed in any major way in the remainder of the series. While Wood's work thus doesn't quite match up to the level of some of his Vertigo compatriots like Brian Azzarello, Mike Carey, or Brian Vaughan, it is still an involving story and especially suited for those wanting something different and probably more advanced/mature than mainstream superhero fare.

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Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
A small country that is ruled by a single sentence and 26 letters. The people of Nollop revere the sentence "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog" and its creator, Nevin Nollop. Letters begin to fall off a commemorative statue. The logical explanation? The quasi-divine Nollop is speaking from beyond the grave, telling his people to omit the use of those letters from all discourse, spoken or written. The fundamentalist-minded happily take to the new edicts, ratting out those who slip up or intentionally break the law; the well-paid police force happily enforce the rules of the dictatorial High Council; most people grumble but follow the rules, too afraid to challenge the powers-that-be; and, while others flee or are banished en masse, a few brave souls attempt to compose a new sentence, to prove that neither Nollop nor his sentence have any special power.

Dunn's humorous but pointed satire is what he calls a "Novel in Letters" -- it is both epistolary and concerned with the literal letters of the alphabet. The pun on "letters" as both missive and the building blocks of communication making the point of how crucial even the tiniest components are to how we express ourselves and understand the world around us: without a letter, we suddenly lose a whole world of communication. As the letters disappear from Nollop, so too do they disappear from the letters that make up the novel (except for a few moments that are explained as slip-ups and subsequently "punished" by the authorities). As the 26 letters become 25, then 24, then 23, discourse becomes both more crude and more unstable: without agreed upon words to express certain concepts (how do you say what day it is when the letter "D" is banned?) vocabulary becomes increasingly unstable, and communication becomes more difficult. Ironically, the greater control exercised over discourse the more it becomes uncontrollable -- both by the authorities and those who try to connect with others. Ultimately, though, it is the very instability of language -- and the fact that no one person owns it -- that exceeds tyrannical authority and returns the ability to discourse fully back to the people.

I wouldn't call this book a linguistic tour de force or anything, but it is very clever and fun. Mark Dunn is no James Joyce, but he has a lot of fun with words and is clearly a versatile and impressive wordsmith. How he planned the narrative I don't know -- how to decide which letters disappear and in which order, yet still be able to tell the story you want to tell? It is quite impressive, and for those who enjoy the playfulness of language and neologistic humor, the book is perfect. It's satire on fundamentalism, overreaching authority, and the complacency of the public is quite apt as well, and very pointed. The book itself is a quick read -- I finished it in 2 hours while doing a few other tasks -- but worth seeking out.

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Annotated Bibliographies

I wish I had done this before. It would have made my whole time as a grad student much, much easier, most especially in prepping for exams, revising for publication, and writing the dissertation.

MAKE ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHIES OF EVERYTHING YOU READ.

Now, I've done things sort of like this before, but never in as effective a manner. Whenever I'd be researching for a paper, I would often gather my sources, and, in a Word document or on sheets of paper, copy out the most salient quotes or bits of info that I thought would be useful for my paper/article. This would produce a lot of material, but ultimately was tedious and not very useful. It was, in truth, a very undergrad way of research: I've got an argument I want to make, and I need discrete bits of evidence to back up my claims. And, it showed that I was doing my research: look Prof, I've got 20 sources quoted in my paper! But, I'd end up with tons of disconnected quotes, which I could use to throw in to my article for support for distinct points, but no sense of the critical dialogue. I could show that I knew what critics X, Y, and Z said about particular lines of poetry, particular historical events, particular scenes in a play or novel, but not what I was adding to the history of interpretation of a text. Yes, I was perhaps nuancing past readings, but I wasn't adding to anything.

Well, that shizzle don't cut it when it comes to publishing articles, writing a dissertation, or, god forbid, writing a book. You've got to say not just, "Dr. So-and-So reads this line as being about such-and-such," but "Drs. So-and-so-and-so-and-so have made these sorts of arguments about the text, and so-and-so-and-so-and-so have responded with this, and here I come advancing the argument by correcting them and saying shazam."

So, what am I doing now? Annotated bibliographies/lit reviews of everything I read. I'm still trying to figure out exactly the most efficient method of organization, but I've got some ideas. Let's say one of my chapters is about Hamlet; well, I get all my sources, read them, and in a word .doc, write a paragraph or two about the main arguments of each as well as what it adds to my argument, what I think it lacks, where I think I can correct it, etc. Then as I read more, I can say, "This author expands on/corrects/refutes the argument made by that author," and develop a real sense of the nature of the discussion(s) about a text. I cite page ranges for particular parts of the argument ("on pages 300-304, she argues that Hamlet's motivation is blah blah"), and I can also include particularly salient quotes that I may want to use in my own work. Now, rather than a bunch of quotes I have to figure about how to insert into my argument, I've got large chunks of prose that I can edit and insert into my research. Plus, the very process of writing the entry on each text, I am able to further develop my own thoughts on the subject. These bibliographies can be organized a number of ways: by text (Bibliography on Hamlet), by theme (Bibliography on Queer Theory, on anti-Semitism in English Literature, etc), or even separate bibliographies for major critical texts (a 2-page bibliography on Renaissance Self-Fashioning).

Perhaps most useful is what this does for future reference and writing. A lot of the work on my dissertation was based on work I'd done earlier in my career as a grad student. But, when I went back to my research notes for a seminar paper, I had no idea what I was reading. I had a series of quotes, but no real understanding of what a particular critic was trying to say. So, I had to go back and reread the whole piece in order to figure out how useful it would be for me and how I would incorporate/respond to it. With the annotated bibliography approach, I can read in 2 minutes all I need to know about the source, and if I need to look up specifics (such as, how does the scholar read this particular metaphor) I know exactly where to go. If I don't, I have a quick sentence or two I can insert into my work to provide my reader with a solid background in the discussion and how I add to it.

Is it time consuming? Yes, but no more so than reading and pulling out quotes here and there and trying to compose an organic whole out of it. It may be, in the short term, slightly more work, but the product I end up with is 100x better, so it is certainly far more efficient and productive. And, in the long run, I think it will be remarkably helpful to my scholarship.

Number 9 Dream by David Mitchell


My rating: 5 of 5 stars
David Mitchell's second novel, number9dream, is one of those books you dream of being able to write. He seems to have read every major novelist of the last 100 years and absorbed them all completely into his own aesthetic; while you can see traces of the influence of Borges or Joyce or Murakami, he never seems to be aping them but is instead writing in his own style. He playfully switches between genres -- borrowing from sci-fi, true crime, children's lit, fantasy, and more -- but never comes off as playing literary games, as everything fits together perfectly and of necessity. The story is as exciting as a potboiler without pandering, and Mitchell can write profundities without seeming pretentious. While my personal favorite is his 3rd novel, Cloud Atlas, this one is, really, just as good.

The story is of Eiji Miyake, a young man from rural Japan come to Tokyo to find his father; Eiji's mother had been his mistress, and was discarded after she gave birth to Eiji and his twin sister Anju. Eiji's straightforward quest becomes infinitely complicated by the strange machinations of Tokyo itself, a confusing and sometimes malevolent character with its own inaccessible logic. Eiji finds himself stymied at every attempt to contact his father, discovers the hidden stories of the seemingly inane and boring people around him, and, most fantastically, gets caught up in a violent conflict between the rival Yakuza leaders who pull the strings of Japanese society. The story itself constantly flirts with the unbelievable, seeming to run by a sort of dream-logic where minor coincidences carry great significance and transform the world around Eiji. Eiji is the perfect avatar for the reader; he's a smart but simple human being, haunted by guilt over his sister's death, feeling helpless in the face of the things going on around him but still trying to complete his quest. Like him, we constantly wonder, "Can this really be happening? Is this even possible?" But just as Eiji is inexorably drawn into the strange world behind the scenes of Tokyo, we too are drawn into the fantastic plot and carried along.

As with Mitchell's other books, number9dream is marked by its stylistic and structural innovations. Each chapter follows Eiji's journey, but his story is interwoven with other texts, including his fantasies and dreams, memories, a series of children's tales, video games, a WWII-era journal, etc. Mitchell's virtuoso writing abilities come out but never overpower the narrative itself, as each generic excursion both advances and comments on Eiji's story. And, also like Mitchell's other books, number9dream bears re-reading. Besides the sheer pleasure of Mitchell's storytelling, small details that you skim over become important later; as Eiji himself finds out at some point, a book isn't the same book after you've read it.

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Kick-Ass by Mark Millar


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
After seeing the movie, I decided to pick up the original source material and see how it holds up in comparison. Now, I'm normally not a Mark Millar fan. I found Ultimates to be tedious; too much over-the-top, look-how-clever-I-am dialogue, a real smug sense of its own coolness. I read the first issue of Wanted and thought the same. The only thing I've ever really liked of his was Superman: Red Son, which was entertaining, restrained, and thoughtful in a way his work almost never is. But, I really enjoyed the movie version of Kick-Ass, so I thought, maybe the book will be good too?

Well, it's pretty good. Compared to the movie, it is far more cynical, in particular about the whole wish-fulfillment aspect of being a super-hero. The ending for our "hero" Dave is not nearly as cheery in the print version, and Big Daddy & Hit Girl (the former especially) are way more disturbed and psychotic. In part, I liked this, but then again, Nic Cage's performance as Big Daddy was so great that any major deviations in his personality seem like negatives. While the bleaker tone of the book (which is still an ultra-violent comedy, mind you) detracts from some of the fun, it is more... realistic, maybe?

One thing that the movie has way ahead of the book is its overall crafting. The film was tightly written with a strong story -- everything fit into place. The book meanders quite a bit, with a lot of wasted material. This is partially just the nature of the media: in a book, even a comic book, you can go off on tangents, while in a movie everything has to fit together nicely. Even so, the characters and their relationships were a lot stronger in the film. What the film also had over the movie -- and again, this is one of the strengths of the medium -- was the repeated trope of watching through different lenses. The book stays on one level, which flattens out the experience a bit, while the film smartly moves among different levels of reality (from the story into the comic book, from the footage of a security camera out into the viewers' space, etc). The movie, then, was far more effective in playing up the experience of consuming media, which, after all, is what the story is all about.

I'd definitely recommend it for comics fans and fans of the movie, but it isn't earth-shattering. 3.5 stars

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The Cartoon Introduction to Economics: Volume One: Microeconomics by Yoram Bauman


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Happened to pick this up at the airport in Pittsburgh waiting for my flight back to Arizona. Picked it up, read it on the plane. A very straightforward, easy-to-follow guide to some of the basic principles of microeconomics, presented through cute comic strips and some eye-rolling humor. I'm not an economist, but what I read seemed to jive with what I remember from Econ 101 back in college.

Anyway, the book is most illuminating in terms of the limits of microeconomic theory. In focusing on the idea of the "optimizing individual" and the benefits of trade, microeconomics ignores all sorts of political and psychological issues that govern how people behave in real life. The authors don't try to hide this -- they note at the end that there are many other fields in economics, including behavioral econ which looks at why and how people behave "irrationally" -- but, as with any study of a particular topic, it has a certain perspective that limits its outlook.

I'd recommend the book for someone who wants a simple overview of some basic concepts. It's not going to make you an expert, but it will help you understand the perspective that microeconomists bring to the world, with all its benefits and limitations. I'll definitely be looking for Vol. 2 on Macroeconomics, whenever that comes out. Overall, I'd give it a 3.5 stars.

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