PAST EFFACED. PAST RECOVERED. DREAMS AND MEMORY CONTROL IN RECENT DYSTOPIAN CINEMA
PAST EFFACED. PAST RECOVERED. DREAMS AND MEMORY CONTROL IN RECENT DYSTOPIAN CINEMA

Summary/Abstract: Utopia is considered to be a perfect state, a place where all desires and longings can be finally fulfilled. Dystopia is frequently described as a failed utopia, a place which becomes an expression of our deepest fears and concerns. Instead of granting liberty and promoting free thinking, it is a space of surveillance and oppression. The techniques the ones in control use to exercise power and impose order are manifold. Control over memory and the past is one of them. This paper analyses two 2005 films: Karyn Kusama’s Aeon Flux and Michael Bay’s The Island which portray worlds with cloning as the hallmark of civilisation. The article shows how the centre of power can be challenged by recovering memory of the forbidden past. Furthermore, it emphasises the importance of dreams as a triggering force for the resistance. It draws on Freud’s concept of the uncanny and Baudrillard’s idea of simulation to examine the consequences of cloning as well as the significance of memories and dreams in dystopian narratives.

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