Under a currently established World Bank system, credit or loans will not be issued to Third World countries and others unless they agree to allow foreign investors access to privatize their water supply. It required mass demonstrations in Bolivia to force out a subsidiary of Bechtel that had privatized the water supply, increased costs three-fold initially, dispensed with system upkeep, and left a quarter of the rural homes without access to water.
So, the premise of this film starts with something real and not futuristic. Soldiers/mercenaries? guard the water and Mexican citizens must pay exorbitant rates for it.
We then meet Memo (Luis Fernando Peña), a young man who hacks into the wrong system (like Matthew Broderick in War Games) and finds himself in big trouble.
When he runs off to a border town, he finds a job with the Sleep Dealers; a world where migrant workers' nervous systems are plugged into a global network, allowing them to do menial jobs in the U.S. for low wages but without setting foot in the United States, and a girl (Leonor Varela).
New director Alex Rivera creates a chilling scenario that is an indictment of global capitalism and a look at the lost promises of the Internet.
Most sci-fi buffs will find the film excruciatingly slow, but it provides much room for though about exploitation and capitalism.
So, the premise of this film starts with something real and not futuristic. Soldiers/mercenaries? guard the water and Mexican citizens must pay exorbitant rates for it.
We then meet Memo (Luis Fernando Peña), a young man who hacks into the wrong system (like Matthew Broderick in War Games) and finds himself in big trouble.
When he runs off to a border town, he finds a job with the Sleep Dealers; a world where migrant workers' nervous systems are plugged into a global network, allowing them to do menial jobs in the U.S. for low wages but without setting foot in the United States, and a girl (Leonor Varela).
New director Alex Rivera creates a chilling scenario that is an indictment of global capitalism and a look at the lost promises of the Internet.
Most sci-fi buffs will find the film excruciatingly slow, but it provides much room for though about exploitation and capitalism.