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TRUTH IS AS SUBJECTIVE AS REALITY:: A MOVIE REVIEW ON THE MATRIX
If we have a Christ figure in the movie then we’d have to have a Judas figure. Remember Judas? He was the deceiving disciple of Christ who exchanged his master for thirty pieces of silver. In the Matrix, Cypher turned in Morpheus to the agents in exchange for his life back in the Matrix as a movie actor. This thought, however, breaks the string of Christian allegories in the movie. Whereas Judas betrayed Jesus, Cypher betrayed Morpheus, the John-the-Baptist figure in the movie, and not Neo. This now leads me to consider Cypher as more than just the Judas figure in the movie. With all that there is to his character, he might as well have been the devil, a follower to the Satan-like Agent Smith. Think: why else would Cypher want to be reinserted into the Matrix? Because he desired to live a life of great material wealth and social importance. In the dictionary, the word “cipher” means zero or naught. In addition to that, it also refers to something of no value or importance. As in the movie, Cypher feels inferior and unimportant to Morpheus and to Neo, just as the devil feels inferior to God.
Though many Christian parallelisms can be found within the movie, there are also a number of ideas in the movie that are contrary to the doctrines of the said religion. Numerous western philosophical teachings were evident in the movie, including religious existentialism, doctrines of which were fascinatingly rendered.
Primarily, the belief that revolved around The Matrix is that of fate, of destiny, and that belief branched out to the belief in the Oracle and in what Neo is. Morpheus strongly believes that one’s life is already mapped out. He blindly believes that Neo is the One, because he is destined to be it, period. No questions asked. It guess it goes without saying that God did not exist in the movie. Take note that I am only indicating the non-existence of Christian religion in the movie. I guess I just find it so interesting that despite all the Christian parallelisms that can be drawn from The Matrix, the existence of God and the teachings of Christianity were defied in the movie, especially that of the first commandment: “Thou shall have no other gods besides Me.” In The Matrix, the Oracle and Neo were both god figures. Christian religion had no place in reason. They based everything on faith – in themselves, in what the Oracle tells them and in Neo. According to Kierkegaard, the chief exponent of religious existentialism, Christianity was a thoroughly rational religion, claiming instead that faith is important precisely because it is irrational, and even absurd. The important thing, he argued, is not the objective question of whether God in fact exists, but the subjective truth of one's own commitment in the face of an objective uncertainty. In the same way, none of the characters bothered asking the question: “Why did God ever allow the machines to take over his people?” It’s a question I asked myself the first time I watched The Matrix. Then it dawned on me: they did not need to believe in God because they had enough faith in the prophecies of the Oracle. Morpheus’ faith too, on Neo being The Messianic One was a hard as a rock. Another basis for the non-existence of Christianity in The Matrix may be Nietzsche's attack on Christianity and Christian morality based on his suspicion that these are in fact crutches for weakness, instruments for the weak and mediocre to use against the strong and self-reliant. He argued that “belief in a Supreme Being requires a devaluation of this life.” The Matrix-wise, it works. After all, if God were in the movie, then what is the use of Neo being the One? The world wouldn’t need a savior anymore, because if God did exist in the movie, would he let machines take over the world? I don’t think so. In Christianity, belief in the God basically means entrusting your life to Him. That couldn’t happen in The Matrix. Neo, being what he is, doesn’t have the luxury of enslaving himself to a higher being because it would be indicative of personal weakness. He simply couldn’t afford to do that because the lives the characters at the end of the movie, the whole of humanity, for that matter, relied on Neo. In The Matrix, Neo wasn’t just a Christ figure. He was a God figure. From another and simpler standpoint, God does not exist in The Matrix primarily because the humans who gave birth to A.I. couldn’t have fed a “God-program” into the computers, unabling them in turn to feed such a program into the minds of humans! If the man who freed the first humans from the Matrix believed in God before the resistance, his belief would surely have been wiped out after the computers have won the war.
Another aspect of western philosophy The Matrix has somewhat brought to life is the big problem posed by Decartes philosophy: the mind-body problem. The problem states: If the mind and body are essentially different substances, then how can there be any causal connection between them? Morpheus has an answer to that question: “The body cannot live without the mind.” Though he’s a fictional character, I’d have to say that Morpheus is right. No arguments there. Physiologically, it’s easily understood: the mind and the body exist together. Without one, the other cannot function. In Neo’s case, however, with him being The “Messianic” One, he lived out Descartes’ theory rather than the common, accepted belief. Remember how he rose from the dead after he believed that he is “The One?” In Descartes’ “I think, therefore I am,” the "I" is the mind and can exist without being extended – the only thing the body is capable of, according to Descartes – so that it can in principle survive the death of the body. Neo first believed that he is The One, then he became The One.
“What is real? How do you define real?” When Morpheus asked Neo this question, I don’t think it occurred to him that the question is over 2,400 years old. Thales, one of the earliest Western philosophers asked the very same question. Plato came up with a subsequent answer. He believed that reality was intelligible – apprehensible only by the mind – but also that it existed outside our minds. This is very true in The Matrix. Though it was only the mind that entered the Matrix simulation world, it was able to distinguish the Matrix world from the actual one. When one dies in the Matrix, however, he also dies in the actual world. As Plato said, reality also exists outside our minds. “The body cannot live without the mind,” remember? Adapting an objective idealist’s manner of thinking, it was believed in the movie that all things are made out of mind and ideas. When Morpheus loaded Neo’s mind inside the computer construct, he explained that inside that loading program, one could load anything ‘real.’ Here, he defined real merely as “nerve impulses interpreted by the brain.” Scientifically speaking, that is correct. Philosophically, I think it’s too dry. I could come up with a long list of descriptions for the word real, but nothing would concretely describe what real is, because what may be real to one may not be real to another. Remember what Agent Smith said? The first Matrix world was perfect. Too perfect, in fact that it failed to adhere to the human definition of reality. Because of that, it had to be re-programmed. Come off it. Quit with the philosobabble and face the facts. Reality is subjective.
Despite some theories against beliefs in Christianity, the Christian doctrine of free will is very much exhibited in The Matrix. It is actually one of the minor themes of the movie – decision-making. Neo made decisions that would affect his life – and the rest of humanity’s – from beginning to end. When he chose to surrender to the agents at the beginning of the flick, he unwillingly and unknowingly got bugged. When he chose to stay with Trinity’s group in the car rather than bail and go back to living his non-life, he brought himself one step closer to the truth. When he took the red pill, he made a decision that forever changed his life. When he chose to jack back into the Matrix to save Morpheus, he knew that he’d be risking his life. When he chose not to run but fight the agent, he started to believe in what Morpheus said, that he is the One. And when he chose life over death, he saw the truth through his own eyes.
Morpheus also had his fair share of decisions to make the biggest one being between risking his life in order to save Neo’s…or not to. He didn’t think twice about it and gave himself up to the agent in order for Neo to escape.
Cypher, the Judas-like character in the movie also made a decision -- a fatal one fueled by jealousy, ambition and greed which led to the capture of Morpheus and to the deaths of five of the other members of the rebel alliance.
The Matrix adapts a few of the teachings of Soren Kierkegaard. Kierkegaard's unifying theme was that there are three spheres of existence--the aesthetic, the ethical, and the religious--in constant tension. He found the first of these, personal aesthetic enjoyment, in the fickle search for pleasure that is essentially egoistic. The second, the ethical sphere, is not egoistic; rather it is an impersonal ideal, a law based on reason rather than personal preference and convenience. In this stage, life is not a series of separate moments of pleasure but a long-range project to be organized according to rational principles. These principles include not only the rules of ultimate self-interest but also the abstract principles of morality that describe what an individual ought to do. In the third stage, that of true religious choice, no automatic, rational decision procedure can be employed, but rather a "leap of faith" provides the grounds for decision.
Cypher represents the first sphere – in feeling like a nobody, he wanted to just live in the Matrix and be somebody. Self-centered, Cypher didn’t realize how high the price is of his capricious search for pleasure until it was too late.
The freed rebels -- excluding Cypher – and the Oracle represent the second sphere where life is governed by rationality. Morpheus and his followers believe that the world as they know it no longer exists. As hard as it is to accept the cold, hard truth that machines now rule the world, they still believe in it because they have proof of it, and they saw just how real that is. In turn, they know what they ought to do. They know that it is their mission to free the rest of humanity from the mind prison and restore order in the circle of life.
Though Morpheus and Cypher could also somewhat represent the third sphere, it is Neo who best represents it. Though the third stage deals with religion, it also talks of making decisions based on “leaps of faith.” Neo first has to believe that he is the One before he could stop running away from an agent and fight him instead.
The one prevalent theme of The Matrix is the theme of a single truth and a single path to find it. Remember the phrase “free your mind?” That phrase was Neo’s guide. The choices Neo faced throughout the movie were choices that led him to walk the on the single path to truth. Remember what Morpheus said to Neo after he was about to tell him that the Oracle said he is not “The One?” Morpheus said, “Neo, sooner or later, you will have to learn that there is a difference between knowing the path and walking the path.” And what a narrow and difficult path it was. Interestingly enough, the phrase “free your mind” is often interpreted as never letting anyone tell you what the truth is; be open-minded and explore things on your own. But what did Neo do? He allowed himself to be guided on the path to the truth and to freedom. Did that mean he was narrow-minded? Yes! Because the phrase “free your mind” does not mean accept everything you see, think, hear, smell or feel and not jump into any conclusions because something better might come along. “Free your mind,” means trust in what you feel and take the leap of faith. When Neo took the red pill, Morpheus hadn’t shown him all the answers yet. Where did he get his trust? Here, Neo took a step – a leap – of faith. But he had some things to go on to. He could feel that something was wrong with the world around him. He sensed that Trinity was for him when she put a comforting hand on his shoulder in the car and expressed concern for his future – not wanting him to waste his life down an empty road of lies and enslavement. Neo’s belief in who he is and what he is was the final key, even over the evidences he had seen.
In the beginning of The Matrix, the camera zooms in on the mouthpiece of the phone travels through what seems to be inside a computer system and brings us into Neo’s room. The first time I viewed the flick, I interpreted this as a message that said: “You are now entering a virtual world inside a computer. Bid reality good-bye.” It turns out I was not far from the truth. At the end though, the camera zooms in on the computer screen, travels once again through what seems to be inside a computer system and releases us back to reality through the mouthpiece of the phone Neo is using to talk to us about freeing our minds. It gave the very feel of coming full circle in order to find the truth. Morpheus, Trinity and Neo all came full circle at the end of the movie. They fulfilled their destinies, finally found the truth and freedom they searched for and are a few steps closer to saving humanity.
With dark and menacing visions of technological science, The Matrix deftly sliced open a pulsing vein of 21st century paranoia. In the past, the creation of artificial intelligence was a mere fantasy. Little by little, it is starting to become a reality. Still, it is a fantasy that does not fail to strike a resonant chord in the 21st century. At present, there are a whole lot of practical applications of AI that really affect our lives like finding oil deposits and predicting the stock market. Gradually, the design of AI systems are coming closer and closer to mimicking the human brain. Silicon brains and ‘baby’ robots, capable of learning are being built as I am typing this. There are grandmaster chess computers and systems that are better at diagnosis than many doctors.
Every time I find myself in The Matrix, I come back to reality with more than what I came with. The Matrix is a very challenging film. It provokes the viewer to drown in the virtual atmosphere of the sets, to listen closely to the dialogues, to pay close attention to every detail in the film and to simply detach himself from the real world for 115 minutes and live in a realm where illusion and reality mirror each other.
By disguising Christian parallelisms and thoughts on western philosophy in an impressive storyline filled with unpredictable twists and turns and open-ended interpretations, far-out definitions of gothic-industrial pop culture and jaw-dropping, leave-you-at-the-edge-of-your-seat action sequences, the Wachowski brothers have created a film that brought in a new definition to the sci-fi action genre.
© Valerie V. Mayuga, 2005 |
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copyright valerie v. mayuga 2005 |