«Matrix» and the new totalitarianism

Cinema Wednesdays - Special edition: The coronaretrospective of anticipation cinema - Loris S. Musumeci

Knock knock, reader... Wake up, reader... You're in the matrix... It wouldn't be so reassuring if the message appeared directly on your computer screen, like a "knock knock". bug. But one bug personalized and controlled. As if the machine were talking directly to you. This is what happens to young computer scientist Thomas (Keanu Reeves). Like any self-respecting computer scientist, he's out hacking when a live message appears in green letters on a black background. «Knock, knock, Neo... Wake up, Neo... You're in the Matrix... Follow the white rabbit...»

The message has never been clearer. But for Thomas, everything quickly becomes very clear. And serious. He sees the white rabbit in the form of a tattoo on the shoulder of a girl who knocks on his door after the message appears; he follows the girl to a nightclub, where he meets another girl, who reveals that it was she who wrote to him earlier, and that she knows all about him. Incidentally, Neo is no ordinary name. The woman who wrote him that message must know him well. Too well, in fact. Since «Neo» is the secret pseudonym he uses as a hacker. As for the «Matrix», well, it's his greatest quest to understand it. From there, the adventure begins. The journey begins for this geek a little lost.

Fighting the matrix

The next morning, they tracked him down at his office. Agents in ties and sunglasses want to interrogate him. A mysterious telephone warned him of the danger he was in. Nevertheless, he is arrested. The agents are aware of his exchange with the woman. He is interrogated to the point of torture. Not a word from Thomas, he's suspicious. Then he is released. We keep an eye on him, he'll talk in the end. And then that woman comes back; she has so much to explain to him.

First, she belongs to a group of rebels. Second, she wants Thomas to join them. Third, she doesn’t really give him a choice. The rebels Thomas joins are fighting against the Matrix—which is nothing less than a vast system, a virtual parallel world created by machines to house human beings who are completely subjugated, programmed, and alienated. Fighting against the Matrix means, above all, trying to escape it to return to the real world. But even in the real world, the all-powerful machines hunt down those who refuse to submit to their totalitarian system.

In the near future

The story takes place in 2199. A relatively near future, although there's still time to get there. We live in a very real world. Good. Whether we're free and sovereign in it is another matter. We've barely emerged from a century of dictatorial and political totalitarianism. And democracy has never been anything but an illusion. Although the discourse changes from country to country and from era to era, it cannot be said that the history of mankind to date has been one of liberty, equality and fraternity.

With Matrix, But the coming dictatorship is of a different nature. The next dictatorship will no longer be written in the blood of innocents on a brown, black or red background; it will be written in 0s and 1s, in green on a black background. The totalitarian dictatorship in Matrix is a technologist. More precisely, a computer scientist. The film was released in 1999, at the height democratization of computing. In those years, every household in the world's most advanced countries acquired a computer. Twenty years on, the phenomenon is global. The computer has taken many forms. It has become a television set, thanks to all kinds of boxes linked to the Internet; it has become a cell phone, thanks to the smartphones. In Third World countries, we now have a smartphone before you have enough to satisfy your basic needs.

Big brother loves us

The computer is everywhere, all the time, constantly connected via the Net. Everything is connected; everyone is connected. And no one can get out. Once you've joined the net family, you stay there, forever, and in more and more dimensions of your being. Big brother is watching you... But it's a good thing that big brother is so benevolent: he knows at a glance where we are, what we're doing, what we're interested in; he even knows what makes our senses tingle. What a pleasant, genial complicity! All the porn we watch is in big brother's eye, but don't worry, he won't say a word. Because big brother loves each and every one of us as much as we are. Big brother wants to make our lives easier. Big brother gave his only son for us on the cross... sorry, I digress.

Nevertheless, big brother loves us as much as God, if not more. Whereas deities propose far-fetched eternal lives in an afterlife that means nothing and of which nobody knows anything, big brother is more consistent, more concrete. He proposes to penetrate us. He proposes to leave no element of our intimacy, of our life, of our body, down to the beat of our heart, to the infinity of our brain, beyond his reach. Consciousness is impenetrable? You bet! Big brother penetrates everything, he fucks everyone up the ass. But with respect and tenderness.

Because he loves us. Yes, he loves us too much. So not only does he want to know everything about us and live through us, but he also wants this great happiness to never end. Big Brother wants us to be immortal. Big Brother is offering us a new Eden on this Earth within a matrix he will have designed especially for us. Where the wolf will play with the lamb, where wars will no longer exist, where death will be nothing more than a bad memory. Where thinking won’t even be necessary anymore. Because Big Brother will think through us. Because we will finally all be brothers, free and equal. But truly equal, at 100%. No more jealousy, no more differences. We’ll all have the same smooth, flawless body. There will be no more men, no more women: there will be a genderless being who won’t even remember what it means to make love—that bestial act.

Metro-boulot-dodo

In the fictional world of Matrix, computer science became artificial intelligence. Then it became natural intelligence. Machines and computers began to generate themselves, creating innate intelligence. Human intelligence, on the other hand, went from natural to artificial. Because it was gradually replaced by the intelligence imposed by machines. And the machines have created the matrix: we live well in it, blindly to avoid being dazzled. Metro-boulot-dodo.

Matrix, with all the questions it raises, is yet another successful, fascinating, and courageous film, both in form and substance. Its hero and his comrades are just as courageous as the film itself. They fight against the Matrix to return to reality, even though the battle is difficult, even though it has become impossible. And the viewer—what are they willing to do to avoid losing their freedom?

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Photo credit: © Warner Bros