Clay

John lives in a world that is radically advanced from the viewers own. In this world the human brain can be scanned and saved into a computers memory. After being scanned, people live on in a sort of digital immortality where they merge with all other digitized humans and stored human knowledge. John has lived with this technology and even embraced using it as a tool, a tool to connect with his wife whose physical body has died. John uses holograms so her presence can be projected around the house. He even enters virtual reality so he can continue to be intimate with her, but when John’s relationship with the technology changes so does his opinion of it.

When John is diagnosed with terminal illness, his wife, his son and his doctor all tell him to get scanned so he can transition into the digital immortality. John is hesitant about the idea and eventually rejects it completely. John was able to accept using the technology as a tool, but if John was scanned the technology would become more than a tool. It would become a piece of him, fused with his being and inseparable from his humanity. John cannot accept this.

John’s ideas about technology are such a fundamental property of his humanity that he decides that he would rather die than change. To fight for his right to reject the new use of technology in his life and die a natural death, John flees. In the lasts scene John dies. The closing shot of John lying dead, next to a river in the woods is clear. The serene river scene represents what is right and natural. Pak’s decision to place John’s death in this environment shows that his choice is also what is right and natural.