The tech noir film I chose to watch was Black Mirror and I watched Episode 4 Season 3 “San Junipero”.
Here is Dr. Oblivions recommendations for this analysis
This episode deals with the ideas of mortality. This episode features an elderly pair of people who are in a virtual world (San Junipero) in which they can live as their younger selves. The characters Yorkie and Kelly fall in love in this virtual world and as they fall deeper into their friendship, Yorkie asks for their friendship and love to be more and Kelly decline because back in the real world she is married to a man that she loves. Then they meet back later in time at San Junipero and Kelly reveals that she has cancer and wants to leave San Junipero. Yorkie asks Kelly, as her final wish, for them to live together in the afterlife.
This episode makes me sob. The idea of elderly living another life and getting to do things over again, fall in love again, and live young again is something that makes me sad. My parents often reflect back on their lives and think what they would do differently if they had the choice to do it over again (the answer is often nothing) and that kind of reflection on life feels so final that it makes me feel sad.
Black Mirror is considered Tech Noir because it mixes humanities new innovations of technology and how that mixes with human instinct. The show is made interesting because the humans that are interacting with the technology are often faced with conflicts that are simply made by themselves but enhanced by the technology. “San Junipero” was made a conflict because of the human instinct to feel emotions and make choices that benefit them and the technology of the virtual world allowed for and enhanced the emotions that the humans living there felt. The technology introduced in this episode confuse the lines between what is real and what is fake, which allows the humans in this virtual world to make very real mistake and feel very real emotions.
Review edited 1/24/25
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