3. Repo Men

After reading the first section of Never Let Me Go this movie combined with the mention of “donors” is what made me already believe there was something going on that involved organ donation. I didn’t see the clone part coming though. The concept of the movie is that a corporation called “The Union” has perfected artificial organs of all kinds. They then sell these organs to those who need them at extravagant prices yielding massive profits ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSca1EnBNJA).  If a patient falls too far behind repo men are sent in to extract the organ, which almost always leads to death. Something goes wrong on a repossession though and Remy, one of the top repo men in the business has to have an artificial heart implanted. Eventually he becomes unable to pay and goes on the run. The hunter now becomes the hunted.

There are many interesting posthuman concepts in the movie. The biggest of which are the artificial organs. We already have these now, just not at the mass production levels as in the movie. That only seems like the next step in reality though. We have these abilities now. Now we just need to perfect them, then we can mass produce them. This is a great idea because it could save many lives and heavily simplify the organ transfer process. All it takes though is one person who sees the dollar signs and suddenly we’re on the road to a society like this one.

Eventually Remy meets Beth. Beth is on the run for having multiple overdue organs. She has 27 organs and body parts that have been replaced. This brings up the question if such a large percent of her is artificial, is she still even human? Is being artificial the next step in the post human process? Alice doesn’t believe so as the one thing she emphasizes is her lips are all her’s (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZ-_UsEBT5E&list=PLD8C811FCC6C93B1E).

Unfortunately most of the Union doesn’t agree with her. It’s how they rationalize killing people to take their organs back. Remy’s partner, Jake, views it as a consequence of signing a contract (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPeqoWzZE5I&list=PLD8C811FCC6C93B1E). Originally Remy sympathizes with this view. He has no problem killing someone to rip out an organ. After he gets his artificial heart he begins to sympathize with everyone who has artificial parts and can’t kill them anymore. Basically the receivers have become a separate sect of society that isn’t even viewed as human anymore due to their artificial implants.

One other thing I noticed is a continuance of the concept of alternate realities within the universe of the movie. About halfway through the movie Jake is assigned to repo Remy’s heart. A big fight ensues and Jake hits Remy on the head with a steel hook. Eventually Remy wakes up and the plot continues to completion. At the end Remy is on a beach when the background starts flickering. He then wakes up from this reality that he’s been living in for the second half of the movie. When he was hit on the head he sustained major brain damage. He was alive but in bad shape. He was placed on The Union’s newest product, the “Neural Net.” This product allowed for the wearer to drift off into an alternate reality. Due to his brain damage Remy was confined to this net for basically the rest of his life, but at least he can live it in happiness. This is one way that alternate realities could be a positive. If someone physically isn’t able to function in reality due to some major problem like heavy brain damage, at least a product like this would allow them some happiness. In this case, escaping from reality may actually be a good thing.

Works Cited

movieclips."Repo Men #2 Movie CLIP - A Slick Salesman (2009) HD" Online video clip.YouTube. YouTube, 30 May 2011.

movieclips."Repo Men #5 Movie CLIP - Enforcement of Rules (2009) HD" Online video clip.YouTube. YouTube, 30 May 2011.

movieclips. "Repo Men #6 Movie CLIP - Lips...Are All Me (2009) HD" Online video clip.YouTube. YouTube, 30 May 2011.

Sapochnik, Miguel, dir. Repo Men. CD-ROM.