20 Years Later, We Still Can’t Escape The Matrix

As much as Keanu Reeves looks like he hasn’t aged, The Matrix turns 20 this year. The news stunned me a little, because The Matrix seems to be so ever present in discussion, that I rationalised it couldn’t possibly be 20 years since we were introduced to Neo and the gang. The Matrix is proof that a good movie has such longevity, for rewatching The Matrix all these years later, I have to say that it is as fantastic now as it was then.

Upon casually mentioning that I was rewatching the movie for this retrospective, my friends immediately began chiming in on how good the movie is, even quoting some of the lines. As we begin our journey into this retrospective, I have to, in all fairness, warn you about the mind-boggling journey we are about to take. There is so much to discuss and get into, and I myself am not sure how deep the rabbit hole goes. But if you’re still here after that preamble, then I guess we’re good to go.

Follow The White Rabbit = Follow The Yellow Brick Road?

When I watched The Matrix at age 10, what stood out mainly for me was how cute Keanu Reeves was and my awe at the kung fu scenes. Now, as a much older person, I see how well layered the movie is, and its consistency in the symbols it uses. The main allusion is of course to Alice in Wonderland. Neo is tasked to follow the white rabbit, to pursue knowledge and see where the rabbit hole takes him. In the book, the rabbit hole brings Alice to Wonderland, a place where everyone is, according to the Cheshire cat, mad.

The definition of madness here is about deviation; Wonderland is considered mad because its world doesn’t conform to what is expected. This is ultimately what Neo gets. Falling down the rabbit hole, he finds himself in a world where things appear mad, and he initially struggles to understand what it is in relation to the matrix. To someone whose only reality is the world of the matrix, the real world seems like the impostor, for it cannot be that this is the state of our lives as human beings.

This is of course a repackaging of Plato’s cave, which presents the same idea. Essentially, if a group of people are chained in a cave, forced to watch a wall of shadows as days go by, they come to accept this as their reality. If a man escapes the chains and exits the cave, he gains clarity about life being more than just their existence in the cave. When he comes back to tell the people of what he saw, they would think him mad. This is why Morpheus can only speak in riddles, because the reality of the situation is too immense for Neo to comprehend.

At one point in the film, Neo is associated with Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz. When we consider the nature of Dorothy’s journey, this allusion makes so much sense. The greatest trait Dorothy embodies is that of self-reliance. As she goes on her way to find the wizard to get her back home because she doesn’t know how to go about it herself, she and the gang encounter many challenges and obstacles, but she never gives up. In the end, we realise that the ability to return home was with her all along, since the wizard turned out to be a fraud anyway. Neo has a path quite like that, where it has always been within him to tap into his role as ‘The One’, but it is only something he can embrace because he walked the path in the first place.

The Love Story

It is clear from the get go that Trinity and Neo have chemistry. Reeves and Moss are so convincing in their display of intimacy, with shared whispers and lingering looks that communicate how they feel about each other. The love story never needs to be centre-stage, or for the both of them to have long, elaborate scenes together – they just work. We understand how they feel about each other, and recognise why this is important to the story. After all, what are they fighting for if not for love?

Love and relationships add substance and direction to our lives. It doesn’t have to be romantic love, but this is the thing we live for. Neo comes back to life because of Trinity’s confession of love. Her confession also allows him to see that he is ‘The One’, finally embracing his destiny and true self. Neo would never have been able to go on and stop the machines in the last movie without Trinity; they are a true partnership.

What I find to be interesting is the pairing of Reeves and Moss, since Reeves has a soft, feminine aspect to his appearance and Moss is tall with her short hair and striking features. She is very assertive in her characterisation of Trinity, while Reeves plays Neo as more accommodating and placable. There is definitely deviation here from the stereotypes of male and female characters in action movies, which just works in its favour.

Freedom and Enslavement

Being in the matrix means your life is not lived for you. You are there to sustain the machines and keep them going. To escape it is to be free, to know the truth of your existence and work to take it back. The movie very realistically shows us how the freedom isn’t an ideal as well. The team is always on the run from sentinels, they don’t live in the most comfortable of quarters and food is just there for sustenance and not gustatory tangos with one’s palate. The movie puts you in a position to ask yourself how much you value freedom, and what you would do to earn it.

While Cypher was an idiot, for a lack of a better word, I liked the inclusion of his point of view. The truth is not a pill that everyone can swallow and accept, which is why he chooses to reenter the matrix. He chooses to be a slave to the machines, to his own weakness, because he viewed that as the easier path. Accepting enslavement for benefit and ease is a dangerous thing, for you are surrendering your life and its possibilities.

But aren’t we already enslaved in some way? Enslaved to work and the income we need from it to survive, or hooked to our phones, staring at our lighted screens from morning till night, always plugged in – eager for information and communication but never really getting either. Maybe that is the inevitable state of human existence, or maybe I just haven’t found the red pill yet.