20: Matrix Resurrections & Collective
From the Soul Telegram: Movies & Meaning Archives…
Gareth Higgins on THE MATRIX RESURRECTIONS
I remember stepping out of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard, perhaps the centre of the movie-going universe, on the 1999 opening weekend of The Matrix, into the sunshine and relieved after the relentless thud of the darkness I had just beheld. Fair enough, I thought, an interesting idea, but those squids and that fighting was too much.
I met David Dark and Sarah Masen for the first time a week or two later; for over two decades now, their wisdom distinct and mutual has never failed me. It started when over dinner in Nashville Sarah’s eyes widened as she told me how they had gone back to see The Matrix a second time on Easter Sunday, the Christ metaphors so rich that it made more sense than church.
I’m not sure I let it show in that moment, but I’m a pretty slow learner.
So I went back to see The Matrix again, and saw it for the first time. Scales dropped, heart opened, inspiration fell, as did I, in love with this film and its characters - people being woken up to the fact that the world they inhabit is an illusion, with their bodies being used as batteries to power a Machine that emerged from their own greedy delusions. A band of resisters has spent decades building up its strength and strategy for a final battle with the Machine(s); but first it must overcome the deceptive power of besuited Agents, operating on behalf of the Machine to keep humans in their place. The resisters look for a savior, who comes in the form of Thomas Anderson, whose doubts give way to his embodiment as “the One”, ultimately giving his life to save the world.
Thus a generation of youth pastors found a new transferable sermon outline, a generation of technically savvy but not very wise filmmakers found a new genre, pop philosophers found lecture topics, and I even dedicated an entire chapter of my first book to The Matrix. Blinded by the feeling of wonder and excitement it gave me, I tried to explain away the ultraviolence characteristic of the film; and my interpretation of Messiah-consciousness, shall we say, left a lot to be desired as far as it came to reflecting on my own ego. But I never forgot the film; nor my affection for it. I was one of the few people who delighted in both the original sequels, and understood implicitly why the trilogy’s creators Lana and Lily Wachowski had asked philosophers Cornel West and Ken Wilbur to record commentary tracks for the DVD release. (The Wachowskis also had the fortitude to ask three serious film critics to do the same, despite knowing that the critics didn’t like the sequels. These sisters are brave; it seems they don’t care what people think when it doesn’t matter; they’re willing to learn from other perspectives when it does.)
That is, I suppose, what The Matrix is all about: learning what matters and how to respond to it. And what’s most wonderful about the new The Matrix Resurrections, which Lana directed, and wrote with the thoughtful authors David Mitchell and Aleksander Hemon, is that it learns from the imperfections of its forebears. It’s a sequel that’s better not only in the sense of expanding the story, and being more entertaining, but in that it embodies the evolution of its co-creator as well the loosening of space within the military-industrial-entertainment complex for transformational visions of society, and ultimately invites the audience to become better versions of ourselves.
I recall Steven Spielberg promoting his Jurassic Park sequel The Lost World saying something like that the challenge in making a sequel is that the audience wants it to be entirely different, “but don’t you dare change a thing.” There’s a restriction on the freedom of storytellers whose audience thinks they know better - like beloved musicians who have to play the same old songs to pacify a crowd in order to be allowed to sing something new. But it seems to me that with The Matrix Resurrections Lana Wachowski has subverted and redeemed this restriction. The rudiments are still there - a shiny fake world in which people are really drones only kept alive for the benefit of industrial smokestacks, a band of heroic outsiders seeking to overthrow the system, an Obi-Wan and a Darth Vader figure, and at the heart of it a guy and a gal on whom somehow the whole thing depends.
But those are, as I say, only rudiments: in the parameters and the direction of The Matrix Resurrections, Wachowski has not merely reinvented the mythos of The Matrix, but allowed the seed of wisdom originally within it to mature into something else.
The original trilogy culminated with Trinity dying to help Neo give his life for the sake of peace; a voluntary scapegoat for the common good, an alliance between humans and Machine to defeat the Frankenstein monster they had co-created in the form of an Agent on the verge of consuming everything. The new film builds on this, but also deliciously subverts corporate Hollywood storytelling, the beauty myth imposed on/mirrored by celebrities, and - most surprising of all - the foundational doctrine that we play no role in our own salvation but that of scapegoating a single Messiah figure.
Neo saves us by showing us the pattern of voluntary surrender to the common good, but Trinity saves Neo. Neo is not “the One”. We are all “the One in relationship with the Other”. Even some of the Machines have figured out that they can repent and join the Beloved Community. (Indeed, the very purpose of those awakened from the delusive dream is explicitly named as to paint the sky full of rainbows.)
Agent Smith and Morpheus are two sides of a coin - a shadow inducing the need for action to change the world, and a teacher challenging us to personal transformation.
It’s a redefinition of “the meaning of our side”; and a movement toward tactics less lethal than before - neither Neo nor Trinity pick up a gun in Resurrections, a far cry from their prior trigger happy solutions. I’m still critical of the role of violence in the Matrix movies - I understand that the intention is that only ones and zeroes dressed up as people ever get killed, but the overall effect is still to close to that of watching mass slaughter in order to save the world. But the transformation of Neo into a character who accepts that he is not “the One” allows for the possibility that either there isn’t a “One”, or that if there is, it’s all of us; of Smith and Morpheus into characters who know they need each other makes them people who know that as the Liberian peace activist Leymah Gbowee would say “I am what I am because of who we all are”; and of Trinity into an embodiment of courage far more than merely a sidekick or lover to the hero. The Resistance is cleaning up the sky and growing strawberries, the Machines and the Agents and the humans are taking steps toward reconciling with each other, and an evolution is underway toward a new world.
Which is what it means for us watching in our own (un)real world. We’re invited to co-create this new world too. Such a world would be marked by a recognition that if trivia is the enemy of experience, then integrity can only proceed from a commitment to Reality. And the best thing you can do when so much in the world is designed to conceal Reality (both the painful and glorious kinds) is to consciously claim the deepest relationship with the most Reality you can find. Or make.
And then…
Paint the sky full of rainbows. The film does this in exchanging the portentous tone and gloomy color scheme of the original trilogy for visual and emotional vibrancy, awe, and delight, and a cast that doesn’t just include but gives full agency to queer folk, women, people of color, and all kinds of non-binaries; loving enemies enough to give them a place at the table; and having the grace to let people transcend their prior prisons of separation, selfishness, scapegoating, and judgement (that they made of others, or that we made of them). It wants to get rid of the category of them altogether. And after three viewings of The Matrix Resurrections, I am captivated by a delighted awe at a blockbuster movie that seems to understand something about what people are actually for.
Kathleen Norris on THE POWER OF THE TRUTH
I was jolted out of a post-holiday lethargy by the news that one of the last pro-democracy news outlets in Hong Kong shut down following the arrest of its staff “for conspiracy to publish seditious material.” (That is, publishing anything the Chinese government doesn’t like). A recent cover of The Atlantic features the leaders of China, Russia, Turkey, Belarus, and Venezuela under a sobering header: ”The Bad Guys Are Winning.” The tyrants running Syria, Nicaragua, and Myanmar could have joined them. One thing these men have in common is the fear of an independent press. And that brings me to the gripping Romanian documentary “Collective” (2019, directed by Alexander Nanau), which should be required viewing for anyone concerned about the corrosive effects of corruption on a society, and the necessity of having media willing to call authorities to account.
The film opens on a night in 2015 with a punk band performing in Collective, a popular Bucharest nightclub. As the lead singer screams lyrics protesting corruption in Romania the band’s pyrotechnics spark a fire. He stops, saying, “This isn’t part of the show,” as the flames spread with stunning speed, creating dense smoke and panic. We marvel that whoever shot the video got out alive, Many didn’t. Twenty-seven died at the scene, poisoned by toxic fumes released by the club’s acoustic foam. Of the nearly two hundred injured, thirty-seven died later in Romanian hospitals. And that’s where the story begins.
In the weeks following the disaster government officials tell the public that “all medical needs are being met” insisting that the young burn victims are receiving better treatment at home than they would in any other country. Every Romanian knows this is an outright lie. For years the country’s leaders have shunned Romania’s deficient health system and received medical care in Germany.
A popular newspaper, The Sports Gazette, is contacted by family members angry over having heir requests to have their loved ones sent elsewhere are routinely denied. The reporters, led by a courageous editor, Catalin Tolontan, in corroborating the substandard care provided to the fire’s victims, uncover another scandal: most of them, even those with minor burns, are dying from bacterial infection, as the hospital’s disinfectants have been diluted. Government officials claim that nothing is wrong, but when the newspaper hires an independent lab to to test the products they find that they are seriously deficient. A wash for sterilizing surgical equipment that claims to have a 25% concentration of disinfectant has only 0.1%
As reporters trace these products to a Romanian businessman who has a lucrative contract to service the nation’s hospitals they’re warned by agents of the country’s intelligence service that he and the entire health care system are under investigation. Romania’s hospitals are being run for profit by criminals colluding with government officials, and funds that could have paid for a good burn unit and other public health needs have instead been diverted to build their mansions in Switzerland.
The film’s director has said he expected to find corruption, such as bribes paid by the nightclub owners to operate without a fire safety permit. But, he adds, “I never expected the lack of humanity.” In the face of all the horror we’re inspired by the witness of one fire victim, a beautiful young woman. One of her hands is now a stump, and we (and her mother) cheer her on as she learns how to use an artificial one. We cheer also as she poses for photographs of her wounded body to be shown in a public exhibit.
It’s encouraging to learn that the newspaper’s dogged coverage of the scandals generated so much protest in Romania that it brought down the government. An election was called, and was won by reformers. A new health minister, Vlad Voiculescu, gives us a glimpse of what accountability looks like: he meets with the families of victims and tells them the truth. He says that no Romanian hospital could have handled so many burn patients at once, but “a political decision was made not to pay for transfers abroad.”
Inspired by his honesty doctors and nurses bring him evidence not only of the cruel mistreatment of the burn victims but the whole rotten system. One doctor tells him surgeons pay bribes to hospital administrators to get patients who can in turn pay them large bribes for better treatment. She comments, “We’re no longer human, we care only about money.”
This film is strong evidence that it takes an independent press to bring this level of corruption to light. It also provides a cautionary tale about how venal politicians use the power of national pride to sway voters in their favor. As new elections approach the health minister comes under fire for refusing to allow lung transplants in a Romanian hospital that is not equipped to perform them. A media campaign accuses him of disparaging the nation and planning to bring foreigners in to run the country’s hospitals. Even the fact that he once studied in Vienna is held against him, evidence that he’s not a good enough Romanian.
This film reminds us that citizens of all nations - including America - must be wary of politicians who seek to hide their crimes behind the mask of patriotic fervor. Unfortunately in Romania the expensive smear campaign worked, and a newly elected nationalist government brought back some of the corrupt old guard. We’re saddened to learn that the man appointed to supervise Romania’s hospitals is legally unqualified to manage a hospital. Intelligence agents again warn the journalists to be careful, telling them that the nation’s health system is being run by mobsters who will come after them and their families. The message for all of us is that this can happen anywhere when greed takes hold and there are no checks on a government’s power. No free press, or an independent judiciary.
Corruption is depressingly widespread. The Economist recently called Nigeria a “crime scene at the heart of Africa,” and in Lebanon inflation is running at over 100% but the nation’s elites, who have stored their wealth elsewhere, remain unwilling to help the country address its problems. For twenty years America gave billions to Afghanistan to strengthen its army, improve roads, schools, and medical services, but much of it went into the pockets of the country’s leaders and their families.
As journalists face increasing persecution, everything from being accused of providing ”fake news” to imprisonment, It’s a good sign that two of them, Dmitry Muratov of Russia and Maria Ressa of the Philippines, won the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize. The recognition may save their lives. Many journalists in their countries and around the world have been murdered in recent years. Yet they persist. BBC reporters have hired smugglers to get them into Yemen to cover the human catastrophe there. A good film, “A Private War,” (2018, directed by Matthew Heineman) tells the story of Marie Colvin, who in years of covering violent unrest in Sri Lanka, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya focused on the suffering of women and children. She remained in Homs, Syria in 2012 after other journalists deemed it unsafe to stay.
Colvin sent the world a video of a toddler gasping for breath and dying after a gas attack that Syrian president Assad claimed had struck only terrorists. By continuing to transmit reports that exposed Assad’s lies Colvin knew she was also revealing her location; eventually an army drone targeted and destroyed the house where she was working, killing her. Rosamund Pike offers a superb, gritty portrayal of this complex woman, and even with its sad but expected ending this is an inspiring film. Like “Collective” it reminds us of the power people exercise when they are brave enough to tell the truth in the face of unspeakable evil.
Both films are available for streaming on a variety of sites including Amazon, GooglePlay, and YouTube. The DVDs are also available for rent on Netflix.