Sleep Dealer
Recommended
Alex Rivera’s independent science-fiction film 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.
