Sleep Dealer: Corporate Power, Water Privatization, and the Future of Natural Resources
Overview
This essay analyzes Alex Rivera's 2008 science fiction film Sleep Dealer, examining how it portrays the privatization of natural resources and the misuse of corporate military power. The paper argues that the film serves as a cautionary prediction about how large corporations will exploit nature and disadvantage rural communities, using water scarcity as a central metaphor for resource inequality.
What this essay covers
- Plot summary and character analysis: Memo's journey from rural Mexico to Tijuana following his father's death at the hands of a drone operator
- Thematic analysis of water privatization: examination of how the film critiques corporate control over natural resources and the militarization of resource access
- Critique of narrative structure: discussion of the film's open-ended plot and unexplained conclusions regarding outcomes for farmers and corporate response
Preview
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Sleep Dealer
Sleep Dealer is a science fiction film that was produced by Alex Rivera and was released in 2008. It focuses on and predicts how the future might look. It stares Memo, who is a boy whose interest is electronics though his father wants him to farm in their rural home in Mexico. Memo's homeland, where he was supposedly told to do the farming by his father, has run short of water due to a private water project that tapped water into a heavily guarded damn. Memo's interest in electronics and computer hacking led him to develop a monitoring device he used to draw frequency communication of the drones used in safeguarding the water project. He was soon noticed, which led to his home being attacked, and his father killed. He moves to Tijuana to look for work and also to seek revenge. He meets a lady, Luz, who helps him find a job but also takes advantage of him to get money by selling her memories with Memo. Ramirez, the drone driver who killed Memo’s father, buys the memory and realizes he murdered an innocent man. Ramirez makes up to Memo. During a war that led to a water source being developed for Memo’s region farmers (Enfer, 2015).
The film shows how big companies are using their monetary and military power to snatch natural gifts from people. Farmers in the region that Memo's family resided had to walk miles away to get water under tight security watch.