BLACK MIRROR
Well, I started watching Black Mirror, after a friend at the University suggested it to me. At first I was really sceptical about it, as I'd associated it with Breaking Bad or CSI criminal shows etc. But I can tell you that it has nothing to do with that and I got instantly hooked. I had started watching during the Easter holiday, while my dad was having a surgery at the hospital. My mum was staying with him at night, so I was home alone leading my "secret" nightlife. One of my nightlife hobbies was to watch Black Mirror, until...I started having weird dreams! Not nightmares really, but dreams that reminded you of a Black Mirror plot. Maybe I was dreaming of the next episodes. Anyway, I promised myself to watch the series again after my dad got out of the hospital.
And I did! And everything was fine, until I watched the "White Christmas" episode. Well, THIS episode freaked me out and gave me chills that I haven't ever felt again. The story starts with two men, Matt and Joe, being in a cabin on a snowy Christmas day. You can get that they've been staying there for, what seems, 5 years. Then, they start describing to each other their lives before they got into this cabin. Matt used to help single men seduce women, seeing and talking to him via a camera (such a thing doesn't exist definitely and this is also a characteristic of Black Mirror advanced technology). In this particular scene, there's Harry who tries to seduce Jennifer, a woman suffering schizophrenia. She tells him she hears voices and can't decide whether she could follow "yes" or "no", but Harry urges her to just do what the voices tell her. At the meantime, she hears him talk to Matt via the camera and assumes he has schizophrenia too and doesn't believe that he's talking to a real person. She takes him at her place, offering him a drink for both of them. However this is a poison, which she says that when they drink they will be free of anything. Well...suicide, definitely. Matt abandons this job, when his wife finds out and blocks him.
The second part of "White Christmas" deals with Matt's real profession, before that incident. Technology is so developed (once again!) that a small chip is built, a "cookie", as they call it, which can be implanted in someone's brain and create a copy of their consciousness. Then those chips can be used in devices to help the original person. Matt is doing that to a woman, called Gretta, who still thinks she's "real Gretta" and not a copy of hers. She refuses to do anything, so Matt forces her just to sit and do nothing for months, while in his own perception of time is just a few seconds.
The third part deals with Joe's previous state. He had an affair with Beth, whose father didn't like him at all. A few years later, she got pregnant but she insisted on having an abortion, as she wasn't ready for a baby. After a tremendous fight, she blocks him with the same way that Matt's wife had previously did. Ok, now! What is a block? It's definitely the same as Facebook or other social media block, but .... in real life! If a person blocks you, you can only see or hear a blur of them, instead of what they really are. And the same happens to you for them. They can't neither see nor hear you. Thus every Christmas, Joe used to go at the house of Beth's father, but wouldn't meet them face to face, only to discover that she had kept the baby. However, a few years later Joe gets informed that Beth died in an accident and thus the block "died" with her too. One Christmas, he decides to meet the child in person. He goes back at Beth's family house, only to discover that the child is not his! He gets into fight with Beth's father, hits him in the head and lets him die alone there.
In the end, you understand that everything that happens isn't real. Everything occurs in a "cookie" like Gretta's, which Matt uses in order to make Joe confess for the deaths of Beth's father and daughter, which he finally does. This way Matt can exchange his release from prison, however he gets informed that he's blocked by everyone, so he's unable to talk to anyone. While Joe is still in the "cookie" back in the cabin, he is forced to listen to "I Wish it Would Be Christmas Everyday" (a song he hates) to what seems for him 1000 years (??? couldn't he be dead). He tries to smash the radio, but everytime he hits it, the music turns louder and louder. And the whole episode finishes with him screaming....
Well, well....I freaked out! I really did, because I was told that this episode gives you chills, but I was shaking all night. I was thinking about it all the time and even woke up the next day with that on my head. It's like those freaking dreams, where you know it's a dream and want to wake up and when you do, you are in another freaking dream and you can never escape. Put that together on film and you have...Black Mirror! This is it.
But to tell the truth, I enjoy it. It gives you food for thought and you can realise what SHITTY society we live in, while we try doing anything digital. I'm not against technology nor social media, but sometimes these affect us in such an extent that we forget where we are and we live in a virtual reality, in a .... black mirror. And I don't want to think that technology will have so dramatic consequences for us, right? If it does, be prepared for it ;) ;) ;)
To finish off with this post, I highly recommend Black Mirror to anyone who's under 17, because otherwise it can really affect you. It's definitely the best series I've ever watched.
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