[Kim Seong-kon] 'Total Recall': Three questions we should ask

The 2012 Hollywood science fiction film “Total Recall” is a remake of the 1990 film of the same title, based on Philip K. Dick’s 1966 short story, “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale.” Set on a dystopian Earth devastated by chemical warfare at the end of the 21st century, this movie depicts a grim future that we might very well have to encounter soon.

In the movie, the only habitable places on Earth are the United Federation of Britain, or UFB, and the Colony. The protagonist is a Colony factory worker named Douglas Quaid. Every night he has the same disturbing dream, in which he is a secret agent partnered with a woman he does not know. One day, Quaid visits “Rekall,” a company that implants artificial memories for virtual fantasy adventures. Quaid requests having the adventures of a secret agent. While preparing for the implant, however, the technician finds that Quaid already has real memories of being a secret agent.

After that surprising incident, Quaid wants to find out who he really is. He gradually comes to discover some astonishing facts: His real name is Carl Hauser and he was originally a secret agent working for Chancellor Cohaagen, the dictator of the UFB. His task was to infiltrate the Resistance and assassinate rebel leader Matthias. However, Quaid defects after falling in love with the woman from his dreams, Melina, who opens his eyes to reality. Cohaagen finds out, captures Quaid and implants false memories in his brain to cover up the whole incident.

Quaid’s predicament in “Total Recall” sets up a number of important questions that are prescient in our contemporary reality. The first question is, “Are our memories real or can they be falsified?” If it is possible to falsify our memories, we can further ask: “Did someone or some agency implant fabricated memories in our brains?”

Indeed, we can reasonably assert that we have all been unconsciously indoctrinated at school by lies and distortions in our textbooks, by radical teachers or by ideology-oriented seniors. It is not too far off the mark to suggest that their influence is analogous to fictitious memories being implanted in our brains. As a result, we have an erroneous knowledge of history and our remembrance of the past is distorted and inaccurate.

A second question the movie raises is, “Should we go back to the past to find out who we are?” Quaid wants to know about his past in order to find out who he really is. However, Matthias, the leader of the Resistance, advises him not to let the past define him. Matthias says that the past is nothing but a construct of the mind, and it blinds us and fools us into believing it. He also tells Quaid that the present is more important than the past because one can find his identity in the present, not in the past.

Unfortunately and unwisely, some of our politicians, historians and scholars have long been prisoners of the past. Hopelessly chained to the dark side of our history, they have always tried to define themselves and their country in its shadow. For example, they constantly go back to the times of the Donghak Revolution, the Japanese occupation or the birth of the Republic of Korea in order to find out who we really are. Yet, they are wrong because they can find their identities only in the present.

Finally, the film raises a third question: “Are we unwittingly playing the role of a double agent for our enemies?”

It never occurs to Quaid that he may be a double agent. However, it become obvious that he is in fact being secretly manipulated by the wicked dictator, which inadvertently causes him to play the role of a double agent who accidentally helps Cohaagen find and kill the Resistance leader Matthias. When Quaid denies it, Cohaagen retorts, grinning, “What is better than a double agent who doesn’t realize he is one?”

Likewise, our radical politicians and scholars, too, may unintentionally benefit our adversaries by doing exactly what they want. Quaid firmly believes that he carries out justice by working for the Resistance after his defect. In fact, however, Chancellor Cohaagen secretly uses him for his evil purposes. Likewise, South Korea’s enemy countries are always trying to pull the strings behind us without our realizing it, as our politicians may involuntarily play the role of puppets or “useful idiots” as Stalin once put it.

In another movie, “The Unbearable Lightness of Being,” based on Milan Kundera’s novel of the same title, Tereza takes photos of the Prague Spring in order to expose the atrocities of the Soviet troops. She firmly believes that she was doing the right thing for justice. Later, however, she is appalled at the fact that the police are using her photos to identify and arrest student protesters.

We hope our past-oriented, self-righteous politicians to watch “Total Recall” and ask the above three questions to themselves.

Kim Seong-kon

Kim Seong-kon is a professor emeritus of English at Seoul National University and a visiting scholar at Dartmouth College. The views expressed here are the writer’s own. -- Ed.