Total Recall

Whether or not the action within the Total Recall remake takes place solely within Douglas Quaid/Hauser's (Colin Farrell) mind or in the film's objective domain is obviously up for debate.

The evidence for both sides is provided within a functional formulaic opposition between two states, one who owns the means of production (The United Federation of Britain/UFB), and another who is forced to work within them (The Colony/Australia).

The rest of the planet is uninhabitable due to prolonged chemical warfare.

In the onset, Quaid/Hauser has become bored with the status quo and decides to check out Rekall, a notorious company who can directly plant living memories within your mind. After arriving, he chooses the secret agent program (with the double agent option) and just as he's about to drift off, seconds after he's intravenously hooked up, security forces rush in.

For the rest of the film he's a pseudo-double agent (Hauser) who has had his memory erased and replaced with the persona Douglas Quaid. He instinctively remembers details of his former life, usually gut reactions which help him escape UFB traps, but cannot reconstruct the big picture.

His situation directly relates to a bewildering recurring dream he's been having, prior to visiting Rekall.

I probably should have paid more attention to the myriad chase sequences and mushy one-liners that predominate afterwards, for it's likely that within their action/delivery lie clues designed to disambiguate Total Recall's 'dreamscape.' But said sequences and one-liners are abundant and I found myself zoning out after a while.

However, before Quaid enters Rekall, the one-liners are delivered with a self-reflexive gritty disengaged realistic dexterity.

After entering Rekall and then travelling to the UFB, Hauser's first olympian flight is characterized by constantly shifting ground and split-second opportune life saving reflexes, in short, the stuff dreams are made of.

Yet, as many people find themselves looking for permanent work, often having to travel and compete to secure it, their terrain constantly shifts, working for a year here, another there, perennially stuck in a probationary period.  

And while searching one must often use brief inter/national/provincial/regional expressions while communicating.

Quaid knows who he is. There's no doubt in his mind as to his identity nor to his historical path.

Hauser has to rely on hidden messages and/or direct support/condemnation, mired in contradiction due to his supposed status as double agent, apart from the messages he's left behind for himself, and his actions, to formulate a stable I, oddly mirroring the establishment of a dream identity, albeit purely rational within the space's systemic parameters.

His sudden epic coercive confusing circumstances require a leap of faith which he makes, choosing to fight for the oppressed (the UFB has run out of land and seeks to invade the Colony to take theirs), which he does with the aid of his stunning versatile partner (Jessica Biel as Melina) while his former wife (Kate Beckingsale as Lori Quaid) does everything she can to stop them.

And an enigmatic individual whose personality reflects the end of history prevents the colonialization while enabling the creation of a social democratic state, amidst cheers and celebrations and a giant advertisement for Rekall.

Is this resolution too good to be true?

Well, in order to openly discuss the legitimate claims of oppressed workers in the post-9/11 age of austerity while working within a domain that regularly produces works designed to infantilize them, it makes sense that such a discussion would have to take place within an ambiguous framework in order for everyone involved to avoid any imperial entanglements.

At the same time, if the narrative does take place solely in Quaid's mind, it's designed to provoke critical discussions of the ways in which the military industrial complex is using pop culture to substitute images for reality in order to disrupt collective left-wing political actions by situating them within the cult of the individual, thereby making them seem unattainable (director Len Wiseman having taken control of the means of production).

Meaning that either way, Quaid is Hauser.