Day 14 - a favorite film.

I don't often watch films.
This doesn't mean I don't like them - I do.
It's just about time. Watching a film - if it's any good - requires attention, for a solid block of time. If I've got a solid block of time I generally feel I should be doing something 'useful', and if I do sit down to watch a film, I often fall asleep!

I spend an inordinate amount of time at the theatre, watching live performance work, and I can't imagine a life where that wasn't the case - it's what I do. Cinema trips are few and far between - possibly as a direct result of the amount of time spent at the theatre! The last two Cinema trips were both to the BFI imax, once to see the Harry Potter 7.2, once to see the complete LoTRs trilogy in an overnight marathon - a seriously amazing evening/night/morning!!

The film I'm actually going to choose here is, like the LoTRs, really a trilogy of films, and if they are ever shown together (or even separately) at the imax, I'm there!

The Matrix

Wikipedia says:

'The Matrix ... depicts a future in which reality as perceived by most humans is actually a simulated reality created by sentient machines to pacify and subdue the human population, while their bodies' heat and electrical activity are used as an energy source. Upon learning this, compter programmer 'Neo' is drawn into a rebellion against the machines, involving other people who have been freed from the 'dream world' and into reality.

The film contains many reference to ...cyberpunk .... philosophical ideas such as Descartes evil genius, the brain in a vat thought experiment; and homages to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, dystopian fiction and Japanese animation.' (click here for the full Wikipedia page)


I was completely hooked, from the first viewing which was at a cinema in Croydon. Initially, the intricacy of the plot - literally anything could become something other than it seemed at any moment, and there were layers upon layers upon layers upon layers of sub-plots - intrigued me, and I loved the look of the piece - it was all so sleek and all so shabby all at once. I don't think I've ever lusted after a piece of clothing as much as I did Neo's or Trinity's full length leather coat. (and I now own a very similar coat - albeit in black velvet - which I treasure!)

The concept on which the film is based - the idea that reality could all be an illusion brought about by an evil god/scientist (shout out to Robert Nozick, if you please!) - was one which brought back fond memories of first year philosophy seminars, and there are sufficient literary allusions throughout the film to keep even my scarily voracious book-brain happy.

Visually/theatrically, the film is stunning - from the green and black data streams which represent the coding of the matrix (yes, I had it as a screen saver, whirling away, and the poster below was on my wall in the flat in Brighton for many a month!) - to the stunning special effects.

The way the fight scenes work (with the super-flexible, slowed down, sped-up movements) looked amazing when I watched the DVD last night. Over a decade ago, the SFX were state of the art. The notion that everything which happened in the matrix was simply a piece of a program, a line in a code meant that Neo, the super skilled hacker, had simply to think of alternative, and the world would change around him. Bullets stopped in mid air and fell to the ground as he changed the 'reality' of the program world by thinking it different. And beyond all of that, there was a fight for freedom - physical, emotional and intellectual - an ultimately doomed love-affair, a fascinating set of supporting characters and an continually shifting set of rules underpinning the whole shebang.

I'm planning to rewatch them all this weekend. Then they're available for loan to anyone who'd like to indulge!