Rewatching the Matrix
This may seem passe, but the Matrix holds a special place for me. It was part of my first wave of discovering movies from '95-2000, when movies were becoming more than just entertainment for me, and I was beginning to expect more and more from them, starting from seeing Baz Luhrmann's _Romeo + Juliet in '95 and _2001: A Space Odyssey in about '97.
I picked up a copy of The Matrix a few years ago, and have avoided overwatching it, wanting to keep it fresh in my mind. Looking for something to watch this afternoon, I put it on, starting midway through the movie. I planned to only watch a few scenes, but I became engrossed, and watched through to the end.
I was looking to be a bit disappointed, realizing how many movies have come in its wake (to say nothing of the two sequals). Overall, I was really impressed. Here are a few thoughts:
Lobby Shootout
This was squirm inducing for me. Watching anything go through a metal detector has a different context following the 2001 plane attacks. Our whole viewpoint of security and risk has been really changed. I found myself cringing as they walked in, at the past feeling of elation I'd felt, revelling in their badassery. That view seems naive now, in light of actual violence perpetuated since then. Even stronger, was a sense of Columbine. Even before the lobby, seeing them in black trench coats made me think of Columbine, a kind of reverse association (as the CO shooters were inspired by the movie). I don't think the M, necessarily caused the CO shootings, but it was still an uncomfortable association, like watching Triumph of Will, or perhaps listening to Wagner(?). Add Iraq into the mix, and our views of violence have changed so much in the last 8 years. What was once fun escapism now hits a little close to home.
I'm trying to think of another action movie I admire more than the Matrix. There have been some great ones, I think the Rock is very strong, the Indiana Jones movies, and early Star Wars. I hear people praise Terminator 2. I feel that the Matrix somehow outstrips all of them, perhaps not surprisingly, as it has all the other films' legacies to build upon. Action is married to plot in a really strong way. Things aren't happenning blindly, for mere spectacle, every explosion and wonder advances the plot in a specific way, so that you are being told things about the universe even as you are shown things within the universe.
A second layer is this sense of discovery, the characters discovering things about Neo, themselves as the story unfolds. This was a critical part of Matrix 1's success, and something the sequals could not or did not tap into. There was a sense of wonder at this whole world unfolding, whose rules were still being worked out even for the characters themselves. It's always easier to set the table than to build upon it, but there is such a marked difference in the sense of amazement and discovery in M1, that somehow flattens into spectacle, loses it's urgency in M2 and 3. I kept waiting for more of those moments (Nebuchadnezzer entering Zion in M2), but they all felt flat, retreads of the initial explosion of information. Which is another way of saying, M1 is an amazing action film, even it's own sequel's couldn't capture the same things.
On another level, the Wach Bros work here connects in my mind with Alan Moore's comics work, taking genre pictures in new directions. People of able talent mastering a genre, becoming bored, and taking it to a new level of sophistication. I read a Moore anthology at the library, and it was obvious that he was doing entirely new things with structure and content: one story had each page divided into four sections, for the four stories of a building. From page to page, each level remained in seperate time periods, with level 4 revealing things about level three, all the way through to the end of the story. That's a level of sophistication that has Moore almost toying with the machinery, like Shakespeare creating a new sonnet form, just for larks.
Similarly, there is a fanboy element to the Wach Bros creation, the story is being created from within the context of fandom, instead of being delivered by savvy purveyors of what is now popular. I suppose you could say the same about Lucas' fixation on Flash Gordon and Spielberg's love of early sci fi, but it somehow seems different, perhaps the Wachowski's as a later example of the same quality, having fed on more recent material, and bringing with it a newer vision. Either way, it's clear they are consumers of media, and they bring that knowledge base as consumers into their creation, which is part of it's vibrancy. The French film "NARCO" really establishes this as well. (Still waiting for that on region 1 dvd. Saw it at our local French Film Fest 2 years ago).
Underworld ethos
I've been reading cyberpunk recently, because of my connection with Mtrx and Snow Crash. It's been fun to read further, get a bit deeper exploration of hacker culture, and the counter culture in general. Wardrobe in the Matrix gave a clear picture of this: their outfits are clearly contrarian. Two looks essentially: on ship, they are guirilla revolutionaries, proto-Marxist heroes of the downtrodden, underscoring their status as underfinanced underdogs in the fight with the machines.
In-Matrix, their clothing is more an expression of personality, values. Like Second Life avatars after them, and Metaverse avatars before them, their clothing is more about expression than functionality. All black, all white, refined couture, adverse materials and textures. Sophisticated, but contrarian. Autonomous, clear in their own identity and values, not looking to mass culture for cues, but defining them by their own values, as a statement against mass culture, in a sense. As such, their clothing echoes multiple underworld subgenres: skate culture, hackers, role playing, S&M/bondage, punk music, biker gangs--all contrarian, all with a strong sense of tribal identity opposed to society at large, whether it's jocks, IBM techs, straight laced suburbanites, Barry Manilow fans, or two car families. What's enjoyable is the sophistication expressed in costuming. Their clothes seem to effortlessly combine all these influences to add a subtle but striking layer to the feel of the film.
Themes
As with the costuming, and the action plot points, there is a lot going on here. This mashup (post-Modern?) of many different themes, a hyper intelligence about media and narrative history that suggests the information saturation and cultural blending of the Internet information age. It's not isolated traditions, everything is represented here: Eastern mysticism, Judeo-Xtian messiah narrative, meditation, folk wisdom in the Oracle ("not what you were expecting?"), romantic values of love conquering all. The M successfully pulled in a lot of viewers, I feel, because it gave each of them something to identify with, within the larger potluck of themes.
Particular details noticed this time: afforementioned Oracle dynamic, the agents checking Neo to confirm his death (a la Christ and the Roman soldiers--blood and water), making his resurrection confirmedly miraculous.
Sophistication, then, on multiple levels, plot points, themes, pacing, structure, costuming. A new high water mark in the capabilities of the genre, and justifiably successful, in my opinion.
Cheers. :)
Comments
Peter - nice review. The Matrix has a tender place in my mind. I feel like the film gets discredited to some sort of silly fanboy hype, which is just bogus as the Wachowski bros had little to no reputation prior to the movie. They succeeded on many fronts. Some of the most notable are - training their actors to do their own stunts and fight scenes; a commendable combination/balance of film and CGI; a marriage of action and philosophical insight (e.g. the movie is a telling of Plato's cave); a highly successful realization of the world they created from their visual effects to the mastery of destructible set design to the use of Wu Ping for fight sequencing. Perhaps something that moves me the most about the movie is the use and exploration of symbol within the movie. The whole concept of the movie is a serious exploration of symbol and metaphor i.e. the Matrix as metaphor to our materialist and consumerist existence that hides the deeper reality of existence. This theme can be tied to humanity in many different ways. Movies have a certain literalism these days that skip over symbolic structures. The writers have agendas and are more interested in making a point than presenting a mirror of humanity. In this way, the Matrix comes accross as expressive and poetic by saying what it means and leaving lots of white space for the viewer to fill in.
The thing that really gets me about the movie is that if I say its in my top 5 movies, its somehow a trite and childish answer...so I normally don't bother. What can I do? Thanks for the thoughts.
The next step is how people's attitudes toward media changed, in our generation, as they hit adulthood. A lot of people, the majority, lost their interest in media, it was eclipsed by other things: work, marriage, fishing, golf, etc. For some (cough-of us-cough), media kind of stayed with us, as a way to ask the questions of young adulthood, or at minimum it remained a fixation. So, one of the reason's people don't "get" the Matrix, in my opinion, is because they're no longer that into media, or they don't take it seriously enough to ask bigger questions through it.
Other reasons, too, don't like action movies, don't like Keanu Reeves, don't like things that are really popular, etc, etc.
I agree with you, that the film is ambitious, it's combining all the gusto of Schwarzenegger and Stallone, with the dynamism of Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris, with this other, "liberal arts major" introspection, for other people who do some of their thinking through media.
I think the Wachowski's take their work seriously, in some ways too seriously. But you can't fault them for trying. That's what makes their work so good, when it's right.