The 2012 Hollywood science fiction movie “Whole Recall” is a remake of the 1990 movie of the identical title, based mostly on Philip Okay. Dick’s 1966 quick story, “We Can Bear in mind It for You Wholesale.” Set on a dystopian Earth devastated by chemical warfare on the finish of the twenty first century, this film depicts a grim future that we would very properly must encounter quickly.
Within the film, the one liveable locations on Earth are the United Federation of Britain, or UFB, and the Colony. The protagonist is a Colony manufacturing unit employee named Douglas Quaid. Each evening he has the identical disturbing dream, wherein he’s a undercover agent partnered with a girl he doesn’t know. In the future, Quaid visits “Rekall,” an organization that implants synthetic recollections for digital fantasy adventures. Quaid requests having the adventures of a undercover agent. Whereas getting ready for the implant, nonetheless, the technician finds that Quaid already has actual recollections of being a undercover agent.
After that stunning incident, Quaid desires to search out out who he actually is. He regularly comes to find some astonishing information: His actual title is Carl Hauser and he was initially a undercover agent working for Chancellor Cohaagen, the dictator of the UFB. His activity was to infiltrate the Resistance and assassinate insurgent chief Matthias. Nevertheless, Quaid defects after falling in love with the girl from his desires, Melina, who opens his eyes to actuality. Cohaagen finds out, captures Quaid and implants false recollections in his mind to cowl up the entire incident.
Quaid’s predicament in “Whole Recall” units up quite a few vital questions which are prescient in our up to date actuality. The primary query is, “Are our recollections actual or can they be falsified?” Whether it is attainable to falsify our recollections, we are able to additional ask: “Did somebody or some company implant fabricated recollections in our brains?”
Certainly, we are able to moderately assert that we’ve got all been unconsciously indoctrinated at college by lies and distortions in our textbooks, by radical lecturers or by ideology-oriented seniors. It’s not too far off the mark to recommend that their affect is analogous to fictitious recollections being implanted in our brains. Because of this, we’ve got an faulty data of historical past and our remembrance of the previous is distorted and inaccurate.
A second query the film raises is, “Ought to we return to the previous to search out out who we’re?” Quaid desires to find out about his previous with a view to discover out who he actually is. Nevertheless, Matthias, the chief of the Resistance, advises him to not let the previous outline him. Matthias says that the previous is nothing however a assemble of the thoughts, and it blinds us and fools us into believing it. He additionally tells Quaid that the current is extra vital than the previous as a result of one can discover his identification within the current, not prior to now.
Sadly and unwisely, a few of our legislators, historians and students have lengthy been prisoners of the previous. Hopelessly chained to the darkish facet of our historical past, they’ve at all times tried to outline themselves and their nation in its shadow. For instance, they continuously return to the instances of the Donghak Revolution, the Japanese occupation or the start of the Republic of Korea with a view to discover out who we actually are. But, they’re fallacious as a result of they’ll discover their identities solely within the current.
Lastly, the movie raises a 3rd query: “Are we unwittingly taking part in the position of a double agent for our enemies?”
It by no means happens to Quaid that he could also be a double agent. Nevertheless, it turn into apparent that he’s the truth is being secretly manipulated by the depraved dictator, which inadvertently causes him to play the position of a double agent who by accident helps Cohaagen discover and kill the Resistance chief Matthias. When Quaid denies it, Cohaagen retorts, grinning, “What is best than a double agent who doesn’t understand he’s one?”
Likewise, our radical politicians and students, too, could unintentionally profit our adversaries by doing precisely what they need. Quaid firmly believes that he carries out justice by working for the Resistance after his defect. In reality, nonetheless, Chancellor Cohaagen secretly makes use of him for his evil functions. Likewise, South Korea’s enemy nations are at all times making an attempt to tug the strings behind us with out our realizing it, as our legislators could involuntarily play the position of puppets or “helpful idiots” as Stalin as soon as put it.
In one other film, “The Insufferable Lightness of Being,” based mostly on Milan Kundera’s novel of the identical title, Tereza takes photographs of the Prague Spring with a view to expose the atrocities of the Soviet troops. She firmly believes that she was doing the best factor for justice. Later, nonetheless, she is appalled at the truth that the police are utilizing her photographs to determine and arrest pupil protesters.
We hope our past-oriented, self-righteous politicians to look at “Whole Recall” and ask the above three inquiries to themselves.
Kim Seong-kon
Kim Seong-kon is a professor emeritus of English at Seoul Nationwide College and a visiting scholar at Dartmouth Faculty. The views expressed listed here are the author’s personal. — Ed.