“This is the American dream,” one character says in Sleep
Dealer. “We give the United States what they’ve always wanted…
all the work, without the workers.”
Alex Rivera’s independent science-fiction film Sleep Dealer takes place in Tijuana, in a near future where a wall divides the US
and Mexico, where water is kept behind locked gates, and where Mexicans
who want to work in the US must first find a “coyotek” to implant them
with “nodes”—USB-like ports that are set into their arms and
backs, allowing them to jack into a network and control machinery in
the US, all while staying on their side of the border.
As you might’ve gathered, Sleep Dealer makes no bones about
what it’s really about. It’s a film bursting with ideas, style, and
plenty of not-particularly-subtle allegory, and despite some occasional
clumsiness and a few decidedly cheap special effects, it never stops
being creepily intriguing and impressively original.
Memo (Luis Fernando Peña) comes from a small town in Oaxaca,
where he lives with his family in the shadow of a massive dam. Forced
to pay to access water they once got for free, Memo’s family ekes a
living out of the arid soil—but Memo wants more. Eventually, he
heads north to Tijuana, where he meets Luz (Leonor Varela), a writer
who helps him get nodes, allowing him to find work as a construction
worker—controlling a robot which, alongside countless others,
works to build a gleaming American skyscraper. But unknown to Memo, Luz
has also begun to chronicle his story, posting her memories and
impressions of him online, where anyone can pay to experience them.
There are moments of goofiness throughout Sleep Dealer, just
as there are moments when Rivera’s touch—which serves him well
when it’s lighter—gets too heavy-handed. But overall, the
visually striking, impressively imagined Sleep Dealer has an
energy, purpose, and relevance that much film—and much modern
science fiction—lacks. Sleep Dealer‘s world isn’t a
glittery CG novelty, or a fantastic bit of escapism—it’s ours, a
few years from now, and it’s a place where things aren’t as different
as they should be.
