Black Mirror's Anatomy

The third season is coming and the hype increases.

Black Mirror will hit Netflix on October 21.

Thanks to the cynical and provocative style, the British show created by comedian Charlie Brooker has become a cult.

The formula is that of the anthology, thus each episode features different scenarios and characters, but they all envision a future deformed by the use of technology.

The stories are a cruel warning on the power we give to the screens that surround us, from cell phones to computers, and show how they affect us, brainwashing and almost annihilating us, like zombies.

There's a prime minister forced to humiliate himself on live television; a society where people spend their days riding bikes to generate energy, earning credits-money and dreaming of taking part in the talent show; a couple struggling with infidelity, relived through a memory chip that records every second of your life; Martha, the girl who has a relationship with a computer system that replicates her dead boyfriend.

Someone called it "Twilight Zone for the digital age", like the 1959 science fiction series scripted by Ray Bradbury and Rod Serling, but also "box of dark chocolates" because Black Mirror offers a wide range of cynical and self-contained stories, but it is more. It's a dystopian tale, ruthless and pessimistic, a parable that forces us to question about our relationship with technology, to look, to mirror reality.

Ready to see how in the near future human life will be disrupted by the use of technology? The appointment is October 21, on Netflix.

 

FEEL LIKE: Cindy Sherman, Paul McCarthy, Maurizio Cattelan

In "The National Anthem", the first episode of the series, the British Prime Minister Michael Callow (Rory Kinnear), in order to save princess Susannah (Lydia Wilson) kidnapped by criminals, is forced to humiliate himself live worldwide: he has to have sex with a pig, live on television. This is also the subject of Train, Mechanical, grotesque work by Paul McCarthy depicting a giant pink George W. Bush sodomizing pigs.

Black Mirror is a cynical, ironic, ruthless, often disturbing, that provoking forces us to think about world and our lives, as happens with masters of contemporary art, from Maurizio Cattelan to Cindy Sherman.

 

DRESS LIKE: Maison Martin Margiela

In these weeks run the network the first images of Black Mirror new season, revealing a certain eighties nostalgia in the look of the protagonists Mackenzie Davis and Gugu Mbatha-Raw.

But in the series created by Charlie Brooker a unique style doesn't exist. The anthology concept that outlines each episode provides a variety of outfits and fashion inspirations, which change depending on the subject matter. No futuristic fanciful creations typical of sci-fi movie, nor eccentric wardrobe like Blade Runner or robotic and artificial as in Ex-Machina, Black Mirror choose to dress their characters in a way that's functional to story, dry, without departing too much from contemporary fashion, but rather including some classic or vintage items, as in the movie Her.

A brand that could be perfect? Maison Martin Margiela.

 

THINK LIKE: Kurt Vonnegut, Ray Bradbury, J.G. Ballard, Gary Shteyngart

"Technology is never the villain in the show" Charlie Brooker said "It's about human failings and human messes. It's about society and it's about how we communicate."

It is not a mere anthology of science fiction, it is an accurate and cynical reflection about humanity, technology and communication.

If there is a true, declared literary inspiration, but, instead, there are different authors and books that share Black Mirror's moods,  stories and visions.

Easy to mention Philip K. Dick, Isaac Asimov, Aldous Huxley "Brave New World", George Orwell with "1984", J.G. Ballard with "The Atrocity Exhibition" or Ray Bradbury with "Fahrenheit 451".

More interesting is "Harrison Bergeron", a novel by Kurt Vonnegut contained in "Welcome to the Monkey House", and "Super Sad True Love Story" by Gary Shteyngart.

In the first, which takes place in 2053, the society forces everyone to an existence that's identical for all, giving people orders and controlling them through a radio device in their ears which inhibits their mental faculties. The young Harrison Bergeron will rebel.

In the second, which soon will become a television series produced by Ben Stiller, the love between Leonard Abramov and Eunice Park is grow in a bankrupted America, in debt with China and ruled by a totalitarian regime devoted to consumerism.

 

SOUND LIKE: Irma Thomas, "Anyone Who Knows What Love Is (Will Understand)"

The soundtrack of Black Mirror third season will be curated by Ben Salisbury and Portishead's Geoff Barrow, who together have worked to the music of Ex Machina, but, so far, the most touching song is an old Irma Thomas hit "Anyone Who Knows What Love Is (Will Understand)".This one is sung by Jessica Brown Findlay, famous as Lady Sybil Crawley in Downton Abbey, which in "Fifteen Million Merits" interprets the an X Factor type talent show contestant.

 

TASTE LIKE: English Breakfast

 

LOVE LIKE: "it is impossible to look away from reality, even if it is distressing and dark"

Black Mirror. Black as the screens that surround us and through which we filter our relationships, lives and world's perception – such as smartphones, tablets, computers, TVs...

The series, upcoming on Netflix, shows us isolated, repressed, selfish, suffocated by the power and so addicted to technology to become arid. It provokes us, insults, hurts, shows a reality and a bleak and dark future, but despite this we can not look away.

Because? Charlie Brooker, between black humor and merciless criticism, makes an honest product.