REVIEW: [Black Mirror] directed by Charlie Brooker

I watched the brilliant, dark and unsettling Black Mirror, which has been constantly surprising me with how on point it's commentary is. A dystopian series of small stories, wrapped in a very familiar universe to our own, Black Mirror gives us a disturbing glimpse into the not so far future of technology and it's impact on our lives. I've always been quite cynical about how quickly technology is developing and how dependent and intertwined it has become with everyday life. I'm not going to lie, it worries me. And Charlie Brooker does a wonderful job of fulfilling my fears in this drama series.

In an interview I watched online, Charlie Brooker states he decided to call the series Black Mirror because when our digital devices are switched off, they literally look like a black mirror staring back at us. And there's something twisted, mysterious and great about that.e

Episode two "15 million merits" focused on our obsession with entertainment shows and insistent technological distractions. It is set in an alternate future where everyone lives in a tiny cell comprised of a room-size virtual screen in which every activity takes place through the currency of virtual merits. From a virtual cockerel wake-up call in the morning, to picking out food from a virtual vending machine on a screen, all activities revolve around this technological medium.

My interest is in the idea of living within a video itself...which actually isn't a new idea really at all. Games such as Second Life and Sims have been doing this for ages. They offer you the option to cast yourself in an alternate life and reality. Worrying when it leads some to spend more time on their "virtual" lives than their real ones. With all these recent new technologies such as the Wii and the X-box where you can effectively control your own virtual world with simple movement, it leaves little other activity to be desired or necessary. Instead of doing the real activity itself (such as sport) people opt to do it virtually instead. We become completely immersed in a world which essentially doesn't even exist. And the problem is that some people actually prefer it.

REFERENCE: If I Can't See You, Can You Still See Me?

I am fascinated by film and books that explore into the worlds of those that may inhabit alternate realities to our own. People who have been isolated from society, blinded, mute, on a voiceless island in the midst of our world. It's a world that cannot be entered or understood by anyone other than someone who has been there. In that way, we could never imagine or possibly experience what and how they perceive the world. How it differs from our own. They are trapped in their own world, one that no one else can relate to. It's a lonely place.

Dogtooth (2009) directed by Giorgos Lanthimos

Dogtooth (2009) directed by Giorgos Lanthimos

Dogtooth (2009) directed by Giorgos Lanthimos

Dogtooth is a film that explores the concept of isolation to its extreme. How people may behave and perceive their world completely differently when they are cut off from the rest of society. The film's insights are startling and haunting, a dystopian fear of a potential existence that seems terrifyingly otherworldly.

Blindness (2008) directed by Fernando Meirelles

"The only thing more terrifying than blindness is being the only one who can see."

Dystopian drama has often been a subject of exploration, a window into a darker reality we hope to avoid. Our fear is in fact due to its very likeliness to become a possibility in our lives. The best kind of dystopias are the ones that don't seem too far fetched or removed, the ones that everyone may and can fear. The fact we can comprehend vaguely how it would be to live in such a space, the psychological impact is far greater. If the world around us changes, so do we.

The Diving Bell and Butterfly (2007) directed by Julian Schnabel