The Matrix. One of the most influential
movie franchises ever created. I personally love the movies.
For many reasons. Mainly due to the fact
that they constitute an unparalleled synthesis of sci-fi, action, and engrossing narrative.
But, also, due to the interesting philosophies echoed throughout the movies.
The Wachowskis have managed to bring together ideas from
different philosophers and psychologists and create an extraordinary work of art.
We seem as enthralled now by their meaning as ever, and they continue to
be sprinkled liberally across popular culture. This video is my attempt to reveal these ideas
and give to the movies the obvious credit they deserve.
The predominant idea of the movies is, obviously, that of the truth.
The red pill and the blue pill symbolize truth and ignorance respectively.
This idea derives from the famous “allegory of the cave” that can be found in Plato’s “Republic.”
In the allegory, some people are imprisoned inside a cave and the only thing they can
see is shadows projected in the walls in front of them. At some point, one prisoner somehow
escapes and gains access to the outer world, which symbolizes the absolute truth, which is
quite abstract, but, in short, one can define this truth as the truth disengaged from illusions,
delusions, propaganda, lies, and absurdities. In the Matrix, the truth is that the machines
are using the humans as energy source and have created the Matrix to keep them occupied while
they are in pods, acting as human batteries. Our fight to discover the truth about
everything is an omnipresent fight. In “The Matrix” this fight is represented
in the fight against the machines, but also in the fight to deny the “comfort” of the matrix and
accept a reality that is more difficult, but also more real, so to speak.
The notion of the one alludes to the idea of the messiah which is
prevalent in most popular religions. Neo is pure, determined, smart, capable,
and willing to risk his life to save humanity. He represents the perfect messiah archetype.
People can’t operate without guidance and without archetypes.
It is a necessity nested deep in our social fabric.
Without figures to guide us, represent us, and motivate us, we feel lost and disorganized.
Neo is the savior people need in order to move forward and
muster the courage required to fight against the machines.
Love is the ultimate feeling and this is highlighted throughout the movies with
the relationship between Neo and Trinity. They fell in love with each other and they
would do anything to protect each other. In Matrix Resurrections this love goes
one step further and it becomes an “us against the world theme.”
Neo and Trinity are not just lovers anymore, they are “partners in crime.”
But their romantic relationship is not the only one that stands out.
Merovengian’s love with Persephone is also special.
It symbolizes the declining nature of modern romantic relationships and
how nostalgia can lead to revenge, and, eventually, destroy a relationship.
When Neo manages to maintain his powers in the real world, he, essentially,
manages to transcend his self. I have said before that:
“Self-transcendence is the answer to every question you might seek
that is connected to your search for inner purpose and balance. Self-transcendence is
the core vision every human ought to have in order to explain his or her role in this world.
Whether this is manifested via a religious approach, a spiritual approach, or a
materialist approach, is not of importance.” Self-transcendence is the end goal for humanity.
In the movie, this is the prevailing idea. Neo transcends himself and
becomes a superhuman outside the Matrix. I guess this is achieved through singularity,
so the directors chose to express that through a materialist approach, and urge
us to become more sanguine about the future connection between humanity and the machines.
This is undoubtedly my favorite scene from the movie.
The architect is a program framed as the creator of the matrix. The machines made
him look extremely intelligent and eloquent, so he can be perceived as the most sophisticated virtual
representation of the entire Machine mainframe. As he explains, “the current matrix reality is
the sixth iteration – meaning that the matrix gets reloaded every time the Neo
anomaly attempts to liberate humans.” This is an allusion to Nietzsche’s
concept of the Eternal recurrence. One of the most discussed appearances of
eternal recurrence in Nietzsche's work is section 341 in The Gay Science, "The Greatest Weight":
“What if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness,
and say to you, "This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more
and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy
and every thought and sigh and everything unutterably small or great in your life
will have to return to you, all in the same succession and sequence [...] Would you not
throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you
once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: "You are a god and
never have I heard anything more divine." We are trapped in a reality where every
perceptual pattern repeats itself perpetually. This Sisyphean concept is haunting our lives and
we are trapped in a lucid dream inundated by repetitions and dejavus.
The matrix reminds us that in the most eloquent way possible.
It is known that The Wachowskis asked the actors to read Jean Baudrillard’s book “Simulacra
and Simulation,” published in 1983. A simulacrum, Latin for "likeness,
semblance," is a representation or imitation of a person or thing.
In the book, Baudrillard uses the term as a way of critiquing contemporary culture and the way
we perceive what is real. He writes:
“We will live in this world, which for us has all the disquieting strangeness of the desert and
of the simulacrum, with all the veracity of living phantoms, of wandering and simulating animals that
capital, that the death of capital has made of us—because the desert of cities is equal to the
desert of sand—the jungle of signs is equal to that of the forests—the vertigo of simulacra is
equal to that of nature—only the vertiginous seduction of a dying system remains, in which
work buries work, in which value buries value.” A goodreads reader explains his work nicely:
He wants to make it clear that our world itself is a simulacrum, that all of the institutions we hold
as the foundations of our understanding of how the world works are, in essence,
not real. As he says early in this book, “it is dangerous to unmask images, since they dissimulate
the fact that there is nothing behind them.” Simulacra and Simulation is a very difficult, but
deep read. Sometimes, Baudrillard uses more complex language than needed, but his points
can be quite eye-opening, if read carefully. An interesting fact is that Baudrillard
didn’t really enjoy the Matrix. In an interview with the French
magazine Le Nouvel Observateur he says: “What is notable about Matrix Reloaded is
the absence of a glimmer of irony that would allow viewers to turn this gigantic special effect on
its head. Moreover, this is what makes the film an instructive symptom, and the actual fetish of
this universe of technologies of the screen in which there is no longer a distinction between the
real and the imaginary. The Matrix is considered to be an extravagant object, at once candid and
perverse, where there is neither a here nor a there. Basically, its dissemination on a world
scale is complicit with the film itself. On this point it is worth recalling Marshall McLuhan:
the medium is the message. The message of The Matrix is its own diffusion by an uncontrollable
and proliferating contamination.” What he means is that The Matrix is
presented as a critique of the system which, ironically, massively promotes it, and that
the directors never did their own self-critique within the movies.
Free will couldn’t be left out of the matrix narrative.
Human behavior, and the way we react to external manipulation, render us, more or less,
incapable of exercising the idea of free will. In the movies, the machines are taking advantage
of this and foist on humans a nearly perfect reality so they can exploit them
as an energy source. Whether free will
exists or not is difficult to corroborate. Neo constitutes an anomaly in the matrix system
and, through his anomalous nature, we become more aware of the choices we can make as humans.
We see in Neo everything we are, but also everything we can become.
We struggle, we hate, we love, we enjoy, we resist, we fight back.
Every behavior we change is like an anomaly for the system.
Some we enjoy, some we don’t. But at least everything we do
is our choice. Maybe.