split subjectivity, on the moon!

Rating: 8/10 (17 January 2010)

We were kind of relieved that the space-creepiness turned into a more philosophically rewarding plot about clones, loneliness, and human rights abuse. Really, great plot. It seems like more blockbuster movies these days from Moon to Avatar are realizing the corruption of the corporate-military-technology complex and how there are no limits to the means it would adopt to make more money, from genocide (avatar) to self-destructing clones (moon), as long as it can keep it secret or have good PR. Moon is probably even more explicitly critical than Avatar about our contemporary political situation (a nod to the immigration debate in a last broadcast from earth).
The movie posed some interesting questions related to my research interests about the social constitution of subjectivity: how we need people to mentally survive, even if we project personhood onto machines or even get only the most limited images/videos of other people from the Jupiter link. We are social beings. Thus the most endearing moments of this movie are when the clones finally start to work together and have empathy for each other's sufferings. Another question is about identity itself: is the self a unity or a disunity. I interpreted the plot as an allegory for split subjectivity: the two clones are really the same person but notice their hostility towards each other. In other words, the self is not a unity, but can be at war with itself.