CIFF: Sleep Dealer

By Rob Christopher in Arts & Entertainment on Oct 22, 2008 3:20PM

This is part of Chicagoist's coverage of the Chicago International Film Festival.

Sleep Dealer (screens tonight only)

This inventive indie sci-fi flick imagines the future from a unique perspective. The border between the United States and Mexico has been permanently sealed, yet there are still migrant workers. Using nodes implanted in the body, their nervous systems are directly connected to an evolved version of the internet. So although they "work" in a factory in Tijuana, they actually "virtual commute" to jobs in the US, picking oranges in Florida or working on a construction site in Los Angeles. The story follows Memo, a would-be hacker who comes to Tijuana from his dusty hometown to take a job at a factory and send some money back to his impoverished family. He meets Luz, a beautiful writer who sells her memories on TruNode, a sort of futuristic version of YouTube. First-time director Alex Rivera values his characters more than his dreamed-up gadgetry. That puts Sleep Dealer miles ahead of most Hollywood cyber-claptrap, where characters tend to be little more than puppets. But his movie isn't visually undernourished either. Rivera blends CGI with harsh, overripe colors and grainy cinematography for a gritty feeling. It doesn't look anything like those Transitions commercials; it looks a lot like the present, and that's what makes it so believable.