Matrix and Total Recall, and our anxieties about the appearance of new
technologies. Bukatman points out that the paradox of:
the presence of the sublime in the deeply American genre of
science fiction implies that our fantasies of superiority
emerge from our ambivalence regarding technological
power. The might of technology, supposedly our own
creation, is mastered through a powerful display that
acknowledges anxiety but recontains it within the field of
spectatorial power (Bukatman, 1999: 265).
Therefore, the spectacle displayed by SF films hides a terrifying truth under
the spectacular surface: the technology that we have created has moved
beyond our ability to control and understand it. To denounce this, SF requires
the submission of the spectator to its internal logic. The capacity of cinema
to immerse ourselves in the film is analyzed by Sarah E. Worth (Worth, 2002:
180-181) who names her theory ‘the paradox of fiction’, and which can be
explained via three central points:
1. We only respond emotively to things that we believe to be real,
2. We do not believe fiction is real, and
3. We respond emotionally to fiction
In spite of the contradiction that it represents, the paradox is possible thanks
to both: the ability of SF film narratives to immerse the spectators and the
visual credibility of the ‘technological tricks’ of the films. The consequence is
that the spectator is able to believe in the (un)reality of SF. The narrative
structure of SF films also helps to produce submission to the film on the part
of the spectator. The spectator identifies with the reality that is described in
the beginning of the film, but one or more elements will break the normality
and confuse it with fiction. In this way, The Matrix, eXistenZ and Abre los
Ojos use ‘science’, technology that is not completely unfamiliar to us, to
immerse us in the film, then the ‘fiction’ arrives once we ‘believe’ and are
completely submerged in the film. In The Matrix, the double life of Neo, who
is both a computer programmer and hacker, is twisted when he is immersed
in a virtual world. And, in Abre los Ojos, the dream life of César turns into a
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