The Removals (2016) - full transcript

It's been said that the
ideas of the ruling class

are in every epic

in ruling ideas.

The class which is the ruling
material force of society

is at the same time it's
ruling intellectual force.

The class

has the means of material
production at it's disposal

also has control over the
means of mental production.

You are here today to
learn how to change that,

not through open revolution,

but by slowly and
incrementally taking apart



and reassembling the past.

Short-circuiting it,

re-wiring it,

making it conform.

Don't worry.

You're in good hands.

The world had changed.

Slowly, and then with such terrible speed.

It wasn't just natural disasters anymore.

It was as if nature itself
had become the disaster.

There was no post-apocalyptic future

like the storybooks promised.

There was nothing romantic about it.

Out of the chaos and disorder,



splinter groups of
splinter groups emerged.

Utopia, at first.

They had figured out a way to
replace the bad with the good,

to remove the original and
supplant it with a duplicate,

to cleanse history of its faults.

A new kind of politics,
a new kind of power.

They insinuated themselves
into everyday life.

Their symbols began to appear,

scattered at first,

and then the banners.

They recruited us out in the open,

with greenhouses,

with meadows,

and by the time we knew it was happening,

it was almost too late.

Until one of us resisted.

They took
you to the first house,

and then later to the second.

By the time they removed
you to the third house,

you knew the process was underway.

Each house presented its own puzzles,

it's own terrors.

They tried to make the
windows thick enough

to obscure the sound of the drones,

but you could always hear them,

the distant, mosquito-like hum

as they passed through the sky.

They said that you could
distinguish between

"ours" and "theirs" by
the texture of the sound

but in truth,

the drones were all the same.

They were all ours.

You've come a long way.

Tell me, what do you remember?

It's too soon for that.

Take your time.

You know, there are other ways.

I've seen the other ways.

I invented them.

Perfected, at least.

Right.

I forgot.

You're the inventor, I'm the perfecter.

So? Let's try it again.

You've come a long way.

What do you remember?

Maybe they
should have called us

something stronger.

Something that captured the violence

that we visited on others,

the beauty of violence,

the beauty of the world in
fragments falling apart.

That was the problem.

Everything hinged on that,

the godforsaken beauty of it all,

of burning fields and houses.

The Removals.

Ha.

If I tried to stem the violence and,

in doing so only made it worse,

what then?

How do you reckon that?

Villains and heroes.

On which side of history do I fall?

Well, the reports I'm
getting from my agents,

they all say we need a
cone filter that can handle

an extreme amount of flaring.

How many sequences?

Iterations, and at least five.

Well, we can make
this fit inside a cone.

You want me to show you?

So, how many would you need?

At least two dozen.

By Monday.

Well, the parameters are set.

This is how we begin.

How many of us are there?

I am writing this from the second house.

I don't want to go to the third.

I've been there before many times.

Not the same third house,

but one just like it.

I've seen what goes on in
that house behind it's walls

and because I've seen,

they keep cycling me through the circuit.

That's my theory at least,

for why I always find myself back here

at the second house,

dreading the third.

The beauty of spilled blood.

How do you explain that after the fact?

How do you explain that somehow,

they made it beautiful like abstract art,

important and indecipherable?

I was there.

I saw it, I did it.

My hands were soaked.

I removed them all right.

I helped nudge history forward

one fucking removal at a time.

It was neither pure
romance nor pure butchery.

It was something in between.

When did you grab him?

Yesterday.

A street view pick-up.

It was easy, once he saw
Kathryn in the back seat.

And he is?

A writer, the fair doctrine crowd.

Small journals, mostly.

Theory, distributing flyers again.

They think
if they do it in analog,

we won't notice.

Who else did he name?

Just three.

But we know there's at least a dozen.

You know, he's implicated certain people,

this one has.

People you know.

There's no need to say it.

I'll find out sooner or later.

At some point,

I came to believe that our training

had one purpose only,

to make us unsuitable for
the very sort of new world

we were helping to build,

a world of image-analysis
depots and data silos

buried deep in the Earth.

In the science fiction
stories of my childhood,

everything happened in outer space,

on different planets,

but it turns out that the future
happens as it's happening.

Right now.

The future,

my future.

Mason's future.

So, you've made it this far.

And this, basically, is just a chance

for you to meet each other.

And for us to look at you,

to see your faces,

to see them in the
flesh and remember them.

And also for us to give
you the final packets.

The old analog way,

this is the first and last time
we'll be meeting like this.

You will each be concentrating
on different bits

at different times.

There won't be any danger at first.

You won't even need any
protection at the beginning.

Later, of course, you'll need
much more than we can offer.

But you know that already.

What we want to stress is that it's okay

to be open about it at the beginning.

We encourage you to tell people

what you're doing at the beginning.

No one will believe you but later,

when they hear talk of
it from other places,

they'll remember what you said.

That's the sort of fear we want.

And this sort.

These training
sessions, as if we need them.

Maybe we do.

I didn't think
I could do it at first.

And then, you saw.

That I was capable.

How many times before that happened?

Two.

The second time.

It wasn't that easy for me.

It's never easy.

How many times?

Too many.

But, by the eighth time, I was ready and

even then,

I felt something.

A twinge.

The blood?

Not the blood.

The sound they make when we first do it.

That part's hard for me, too.

Where are they sending you next?

Back to my hometown.

An old friend that's gone too
far, written too many things.

I think it's a test.

It's the first time you've
removed someone you know.

Not the first,

but the first one that matters,

the first one I care about.

She wrote that one, too,

but under a different name.

The argument's still the same.

Yeah, once she goes there
will be a lot of noise

that won't makes its way
to the surface for a while.

That's the sort of
delayed reaction we need.

No, not tomorrow.

Yeah, let's wait a week.

By then, she'll be in...

Omaha.

My god, Omaha.

Yeah. Yeah, wait until then.

I'll send you the details
and let's keep this one soft.

Yeah, that works but through the network.

Oh, they'll write about her.

The brave ones, the ones
with nothing to lose.

Well then, we'll remove them, too.

Who, Craney?

The one-armed man?

It's about time.

Well, he'll be at...

Let me see.

He'll be at that convention in March.

Yeah, we should do it there and

let's bring Mason in on this one.

After these two, we should
take it easy for a while.

Right.

And if that happens, we'll kill it all.

The pageantry, the rituals.

We had tried to invent new
ones to replace the old ones.

I surveyed the old ways one last time.

I wanted to remember, moment by moment.

I wanted the images to burn
themselves into my skin,

wanted the sounds to flood my brain,

wanted the colors to
drain themselves into me.

For those moments,

I couldn't even think about
Mason and his doomed project.

It was just me and

there was no filter
between me and the world.

Some of us had volunteered out
of sorrow or out of revenge.

We had all lost something.

There was desire to give
ourselves over to a purpose

so much vaster than our individual grief.

You're going to have to master

a few simple rules

if you want to come in.

Who said anything about wanting?

Well, if not want, then what?

You know.

The architecture, is that it?

So deeply imbedded?

Maybe your problem is
realizing it was already there.

You talk like it's
something you just found.

Didn't we?

We?

I.

Did you find it? Or make it.

I made it.

Then refined it.

Right.

The type of
ceramic, it wasn't old enough.

You made it look ancient but it wasn't.

No one cared about that.

Except me.

Except you.

How many sequences?

Iterations.

How many iterations?

Mason, now we're getting
to where we can't go back.

How many iterations until
you've got the perfect one?

It's never about

finding the right formula, you see.

That's the difference.

But the objective is always...

If you want me to say it,

let me say it clearly
and without interruption.

You've never understood
the difference, Mason,

which is why you're here right now.

The difference between
making people afraid

and making people think they're afraid...

There is no difference.

There's all the difference in the world.

Isn't a false memory still a memory?

It doesn't matter if it's true or false.

What matters is if you want to come in.

Want?

You've been on the
right side until recently.

I shouldn't say this,

but even if you come in,

it won't save you.

Christ.

You talk like it's a religion.

It's never been that.

Wanna see something?

Here.

The removal of what?

Authenticity itself?

The texture of the real?

It sounds impossible, but it's what they...

We...

Were after.

To remove it and then to reconstruct it,

to reconstruct it so carefully
that no one would notice,

down to every last detail.

To remake every gesture, every glance,

to time every movement
so that it corresponds

precisely with what's being copied and,

in doing so,

to remove any trace of what was.

I gathered my props, my tools,

to do over the woman at the greenhouse,

to get it close but not too close.

I relied on memory, not images.

To overwrite the original,

I only needed to approximate it.

To meet the past not in the past,

but in the present,

yet in order to do that,

I had to go back,

back to where it all began.

I brought the props, as near
as I could remember them.

I played the woman who
gave us our instructions

and reassembled the greenhouse

as close as possible to the original.

I hired them, the extras,

including a rough version of me and Mason.

Like a recording over a VHS
tape from the analog days,

that was the idea,

the idea I'd stolen and so,

once they took their places, we began.

Can you recreate the moment
when you fall in love?

So, you've made it this far.

And this is just basically a chance

for you all to meet each other.

And for us to look out at you,

to see your faces,

to see them in the
flesh and remember them.

It's also a chance for us
to give out the final packets,

the old analog way.

This is the first and last
time we will meet like this.

You will each be concentrating
on different bits

at different times.

There won't be any danger at first.

You won't need protection
in the beginning.

Later, of course, you'll need
much more than we can offer.

But, you already know about that.

The thing we want to stress
to you is that it's okay

to be open about it, at first.

We encourage you to tell
people what you're doing

in the beginning.

No one will believe you,

but later, when they hear
talk of it from other places,

they'll remember what you said.

And that is the kind
of fear that we want.

And this sort.

This is the one.

How many cone filters?

Three.

That's what surprised us.

It didn't take so many.

It's the oxidation itself.

Which is naturally occurring.

And the membrane?

Uncompromised for now.

A little flaring at the edges,
but we've seen that before.

Okay. Let's do it again.

Cut it off.

It's too hot.

I like your hometown.

I told you it was homey.

Things were so serious
at the greenhouse.

I know.

You probably thought I
was a self-absorbed bore.

No, not at all.

I thought you were funny,

the way you imitated that woman.

The one who followed us
around the second night?

She was really something.

Did she think we didn't notice?

I don't know.

It's strange to be back.

Have you done it yet?

Yesterday.

It was easy.

I mean, I wanted it to be easy but,

after it was over I wished
it had been more difficult.

Do you ever feel that way?

No. Not anymore.

But I remember the feeling.

Did you know I wrote the first slogans?

You did?

Which ones?

♫ We are all

♫ More or less aware

♫ of the road traveled ♫

and "The only justification for thinking"

"is that it accelerates
a terminal process."

I remember those.

They don't need slogans anymore, do they?

No, not for a while they haven't.

Is it still a revolution if
no one notices it's happening?

Your homey hometown.

Those guys look like they
stepped out of a Brando movie.

Well, do you think it was?

What?

You know.

If it was, it was
different than the others.

I've never seen one like it.

Unless it was for show.

It didn't look real.

The way he just
went down with no fight?

It seemed rehearsed.

For show? For who? Us?

Let's assume the worst.

Let's assume it was for us.

The revolution eats its own children.

Maybe now is a good time to
talk about House Number Three.

It's never a good time to
talk about House Number Three

or what's beneath it.

I don't think it can hear you.

You know better than that.

He would kill us if he got the chance.

The Conversation.

His best movie.

It's almost as if...

We're removing that scene.

It sounds real.

As it should.

Parallel structures.

After re-staging the bar scene,

we re-staged the outdoor scene.

He couldn't have known we would be there

at that bar at that moment.

Could he?

Let's assume it was for us.

Let's assume the worst.

The revolution devours its own children?

Maybe now's a good time to
talk about House Number Three.

He'd kill us if he found out.

The Conversation.

It's almost like we're removing it.

That scene?

I'm the
one telling this story,

the one who has to describe
what happens in the third house.

But, history's never that simple.

It's hard to tame.

We cage it and it breaks free.

They...

We...

Borrowed the idea of parallel
structures from the Fascists.

An outsider party that
wants to claim power sets up

organizations that
replicate culture itself:

government agencies, museums,

sports teams.

You create doubles of
these things over time,

make them more useful
than the originals and

then gradually replace those originals.

These meetings
used to intimidate me.

Not any more, huh?

I like the way we do
it out in the open now.

What's there to hide these days?

Some would say that's a problem.

We've moved beyond infrastructure.

It's time for spectacle.

There's no need for secrecy.

That's what you came here to tell me?

Mostly.

It's a long way to
come to deliver old news.

You don't think it's true?

I think you can only take away so much

before it's all gone.

That's always been the plan.

So, the files.

Just these two?

Just those two.

And you're certain?

What's certain these days?

Yes, I'm certain.

Now remember, just try to
forget that it's happening

and go with it as it unfolds.

I like your hometown.

Told you it was homey.

Things were so serious
at the greenhouse.

Did you think I was
a self-important bore?

Oh, no.

I thought you were funny,

the way you imitated that woman.

The one who
was following us around?

She was something else.

Did she not think we noticed?

I don't know.

It's really difficult, being back here.

Have you
gone through with it yet?

Yesterday.

It was easier than I thought.

Did you know that I
wrote the first slogans?

Really? Which ones?

The song and

"The only justification..."

I remember those.

They don't really need
slogans anymore, do they?

No, not for a while now.

Is it still a revolution if
no one notices it's happening?

Your homey hometown.

Those guys look like they walked out

of a Marlon Brando movie in the 1950s.

We need to talk about the cones.

We need to talk about a lot of things.

You got any here?

No, not now.

Not today.

You need to tell me how
they're functioning.

You already know or else we
wouldn't be talking right now.

It's your job to tell me.

I read your report and it was ambiguous.

That's why we're talking face to face.

Screen to screen?

The curse of high-definition.

No, what was it?

"The regime of the pure image
always equals pure terror."

Didn't you write that?

Now we're getting somewhere.

You would say the cones are
fulfilling their function?

I would say so.

The ratios are on target?

It appears to be.

Between removals and disappearances,

it's about two to three.

I assume you'd like to close the gap.

That's the idea.

They're all switched on?

I got the impression from your
report that only some were.

Switched on?

That's one way of saying it.

Yes, they're all active.

And Bronson?

You'd have to ask him.

I'm asking you.

Bronson has instructed me to do things.

You mean I instructed Bronson

to instruct you to do things.

And so he has.

Who was it that said,

"Humans are the only endangered species"

"that no one would
acknowledge as endangered?"

Vertigo is a final solution.

Here I thought we were
talking about the cones.

We are.

So this is where they got you now?

A dungeon.

Yeah, doing the devil's work.

Got your bill cut off down here?

Bill cut off out there too.

There's no difference.

Still...

I know it's hard for you to imagine.

Oh, I can imagine it.

I just can't understand it.

Just give it time.

You'll get acclimated.

You think so?

So, what about inside the cage?

Same as out here.

There's no difference.

It's the same air.

You ever sleep in there?

That's a funny question.

I'll open it now.

Oh, no.

You've seen it.

You want to know I've seen it?

I'll know anyway.

Before you leave I mean.

It doesn't matter.

Open it now if you want.

Or are you afraid you'll find

a picture of yourself in there?

And if I do, will you be involved?

We're all involved.

Show me the inside.

The inside.

There's thousands.

Well, don't worry.

I don't want to see any of them.

Let's talk about the files you brought.

The ones you brought here today.

You haven't even opened it yet.

You have.

I have.

You brought it here yourself.

You know that I did.

Are the first pictures still in there?

I haven't seen them.

Since...

Go to the back and stay there.

The revolution always eats its young.

Stay put.

I sent a signal to Bronson,

the old analog way.

We had become part of a gigantic
process too vast to see,

but you could feel it.

So familiar it had become unfamiliar.

It's as if cause and
effect had become reversed.

Bronson would see not because
I had placed it there,

but rather, I placed it
there because he saw it.

Like I said, it was Mason who finally took

the ideological plunge,

who put his hand in the thresher,

who loosened the heavy blade.

This was near the end.

Go ahead, Mason.

Do you see it?

Do you see it there?

It's there.

But it's different.

It looks different.

How?

Smaller. I don't know.

Because you're far away.

You have to get closer.

I am getting closer.

It's not getting bigger.

I want to get a replacement.

You can't.

You know you can't.

That's not a question.

That's not a question you should ask.

It wasn't a question.

You've come a long way.

Tell me, what do you remember?

I've seen many things that
you wouldn't understand.

Tell me anyway.

You send me to do these things,

to remove them.

Of course I did.

I know I did,

and you removed them well.

I removed them well.

Did I?

The old simple one, remember it?

That's what you call it?

The drones are everywhere.

They fill everything.

I'm going to the third house.

You look pixelated.

I feel pixelated.

So, what wouldn't I understand?

About?

The things you've seen.

Let's not talk about that.

Let's talk about the third house.

Okay.

Do you remember the tract about

the illusory revolution?

All that jargon,

the parliamentary representatives,

the society of the spectacle,

the interventionists, the cone filters,

the removals.

I remember the tracts,

stapled together like zines,

as if somehow that made
them more readable.

It was too romantic but it worked.

Mason, there's no
need to go to the third house.

Yeah.

How did we come up with that?

With what?

The numbering system.

House One, House Two, House Three.

I always like
to think we picked it

from the Three Little Pigs.

Mason, I think you should
turn around and go back.

To what?

There's still work to be done.

There's Kathryn.

You're so fucking disembodied.

You're up there, you're not up there.

I don't see you in real time.

There's a ten second delay.

For the signals
to do their dirty work.

We've worked up
an algorithm to compensate

for the time delay.

It brings it down from
about 15 to 10 seconds.

But still, that's an eternity.

So, Mason, back
to the same question.

What do you remember?

This. I remember this.

Exactly?

Not exactly.

The angle was different.

I approached it from over there.

And the difference is...?

The door.

I remember it being red.

And what else?

It seemed larger.

Something about this trajectory feels off

even though it's closer to the original.

It's coming back to me now.

Are you sure this is the
same House Number Three?

Well, there's only one.

What do you mean, "feels off?"

Ten seconds off.

Spooky action at a distance.

Einstein's Theory?

Not his theory.

But what if it applied to humans?

What if it did?

Spooky action, but tighter in.

It doesn't.

It can't.

It's quantum.

We don't need to use it differently.

Mason, it's time to go inside.

You've come a long way.

Tell me, what do you remember?

This. All of this.

The filters, how many are there?

How many sequences?

Iterations.

How many iterations?

Thousands.

Tens of thousands.

I see what I'm getting now.

So, what else do you remember?

What's different?

Wasn't there a hole here?

Where?

Here, where I'm standing.

I can't see
where you're standing.

I can't see you inside.

I can only hear you.

Who are these Polaroids of?

What Polaroids?

In the files on the desk
that I'm holding in my hands.

The pages inside with
the Polaroids affixed.

Who are they of?

There are no
Polaroids affixed to the pages.

I'm looking at it now.

At what?

The hole.

Or I'm sitting at the desk,

going through the files
with the Polaroids.

Or I'm inspecting the cones.

It's true.

You could be doing any of those things.

Or none of them.

How do you measure
the success of a revolution?

Is it by the accumulated number of bodies?

There were no bodies.

No.

Just thousands of files
with pictures of people

who have disappeared.

People don't disappear.

Something happens to them first.

Something.

In the beginning,

we vowed not to use euphemisms.

But we realized
every word is a euphemism.

Language is a euphemism.

You can't get close to describing reality

as the way it really is.

Especially a
reality soaked in blood.

You're a good linguist
but a lousy philosopher.

Where are you?

Where are you?

I'm sitting at the desk,
going through the files

with no Polaroids in them.

It doesn't sound
like you're sitting at a desk.

Oh no?

How does it?

An echo. There's an echo.

A time delay.

Not time delay, an echo.

You hear my voice twice.

Right.

The first time is tragedy
and the second time is farce.

Reverse that in your case.

The revolution devours its own children.

I've heard that before.

Kathryn said it to you.

And you said it to the Accountant.

Mason?

I told you it wouldn't end well.

Sorry.

Stay where you are at the desk.

And?

And it will
just be easier that way.

For which one of us?

They'll be here
in less than an hour.

If you try to leave the
house, I'll see you.

Casey?

What?

Casey. Is Casey coming?

There is no Casey.

You keep telling yourself that.

Greater than.

Lesser than.

Greater than, lesser than, greater than.

Signifiers detached from what
they were supposed to signify.

Empty symbols with no meaning.

That's what The Removals
finally accomplished,

draining the meaning from things.

Fragments.

Repetition.

They took you to the first house and

then later to the second.

By the time they removed
you to the third house,

you knew the process was underway.