This is a Mexican/USA film about a young man named Memo (Luis Fernando Pena) who moves to Tijuana to earn money for his family, after the unexpected death of his father. He has high-tech nodes implanted into his body, and goes to work in a sleep dealer factory. The sleep dealers sell cheap migrant labor to American corporations, without them ever crossing the border. Soon, Memo wants a change, so he obtains the help of his girlfriend Luz (Leonor Varela), and a pilot named Agent Ramirez (Jacob Vargas).

 

This whole film was an interesting concept. I enjoyed it a lot, and there were some elements borrowed from other familiar films that were put to good use here. The plugging in to record your memories has been seen in Strange Days. The nodes used to get plugged in were borrowed from The Matrix. Another movie my classmates tossed in was Blade Runner. Corporate America is involved so heavily in this film, but not the American government. In fact, the only time America is seen, is with Agent Ramirez. He’s the child of Mexican immigrants, and has grown up in America. He’s visited Mexico occasionally, but he’s not really connected to it.

 

The labor comes from the sleep dealer factory. Once Memo plugs in, he’s “transported” to San Diego, to a construction site. He’s now a robot welder. The animation used here had a similar look and feel to the Grand Theft Auto games. Memo makes okay money, but he sends the majority of it home to his mother and brother, which brings up another interesting topic. When Memo calls home, he uses a phone system that combines a camera, a screen, and a little booth. You sit in the booth, in front of the camera, and the image is transferred to whomever you’re calling. (Same for the other caller.) If you send money over the system, the machine takes out taxes, fees, and surcharges.

 

The use of color in this film was great. The Node club has lots of reds and blues in it, and the way the scenes are shot makes the colors very crisp and clear. The cables for plugging in are a vibrant blue, and in low light (such as nighttime) they especially stand out. When Memo (as narrator) flashes back to that particular summer, the colors blend together and change into whatever memory he’s showing.

 

There were some elements to this project which needed some work. When Memo gets off the bus in Tijuana, and he and Luz part company, she miraculously finds him the next day, in order to continue getting to know him. Also, why would you need robots for the physical part of the manual labor, when you could just transport the migrants to where you needed them? I do think we’re a lot closer to the nodes and plugging in than we realize. And the phone system is just about here, what with iPhones, and Skype.

 

Three trees out of 5