This was one of the episodes from the latest season of Black Mirror. I saw it almost month back but somehow this episode had a lingering effect and wanted to post about it. It begins with one company called Eulogy, reaching out to a guy for colleting photos about his ex-girlfriend who had passed away, to include in the memorial service. Like any guy who has shared a bitter past with his ex, he is very reluctant at first and shares few pictures where the face of his girlfriend is either not clear or where she is looking else where and face not being covered in the picture at all. The company has a feature that allows people to actually visit the photo, meaning they can walk inside the picture mentally and look at the moment when the picture was clicked from a third person perspective. Like a mini time travel, only within that photo. The more pictures he dig up, the more it becomes clear that, he had purposedly struck out her face on all the pictures he had of her out of hatred and anger. He recounts how their relationship ended due to infidelity of the girl friend, that too right around the time when he was about to propose to her. Soon he finds a long lost camera with still undeveloped films from the past relationship. It has a picture of an unread letter written by the girlfriend to him and after "visiting" that photo and actually finding that letter after all this while, he understands that she was actually willing to marry him and live with him and had requested him to wait for her after her work. That guy is heart broken to realize his folly and how wrong he had been all these years, thinking not just bad about that girl but also for having destroyed every picture of her from his life. He somehow manages to see her face in one of the pictures where she is seem to be looking elsewhere. It looks as if he remembered that instance or he recollected how she looked or whether the tool allowed him to see things not covered in the picture, whatever be the reason, he gets to see her one last time in memory and relives that moment. He visits her memorial service, conducted by the very daughter born out of that one night stand. The entire episode, despite its sci-fi genre, was very emotional and the sci-fi element beautifully blended into the storyline. Probably one of the very few stories in this series that actually showed technological advancement in positive light!!
When Harry potter series came in, i was amazed at the creativity of talking pictures, something like digital photo frames and how fantastic it would be if we could not just recollect the memories of older pictures but can also relive those moments!! When i saw this episode it felt like exactly how i had wanted and felt bit more closer to this episode. Wonder how soon or how long it is going to be for this to be extended into a movie, if not already!!!
Comments