Matrix: Reloaded, the Philosophical Version

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THE MATRIX







by
Ken Mondschein




Going into The Matrix: Reloaded, I wasn't worried if the fight scenes or special effects would measure up to the first film�it was the metaphysics that bothered me. The first Matrix was such a neat allegory of Gnostic philosophy, I was more concerned with how the Brothers Wachowski could successfully extend the metaphor into three films than whether they could pull off even more virtuoso examples of cinematic ass-stomping. What was mindblowing about the first movie, after all, wasn't the fight choreography or bullet time, but its brave assertion that the banal, day-to-day reality we live in isn't the real world. In that sense, all the wire-fu was just the candy coating on the red pill the filmmakers were offering to every high school student and cubicle slave in the world. (Though, since I study martial arts myself, I found the idea of kung fu as being metaphorical for something happening in hyper-reality, a la Thibault's mysterious circle, to be pretty darn appealing.)

Thankfully, Reloaded more than allayed my fears, even if it seems that half the reviewers either didn't understand what the Wachowskis were getting at, or else were only paying attention during the highway chase. Watching the movie, I was personally less impressed by the fists of digital fury than by the Brothers' evident familiarity with the Dead Sea Scrolls and the theology of Origen of Alexandria. Seen in the light of the books they're referencing, the movie's plot is brilliant; of course, to the non-initiate, the characters' actions and dialogue seems arbitrary and incomprehensible, and the exposition is just filler between car crashes. It would seem, therefore, that a bit of exegesis of The Matrix: Reloaded is warranted. But be warned: If you haven't seen the movie yet, don't read on. There are some major spoilers.

Much like that other great Keanu Reeves vehicle, Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey, The Matrix: Reloaded centers around the hero's journey into the Underworld. Frazier, in The Golden Bough, notes that it is a prophetess�in this case, the Oracle�who sends the hero off on his journey, from where he returns with special knowledge. And, of course, that's just what Neo does, though it would have been a while lot more amusing if he'd had Alex Winter along. (The Oracle probably isn't entirely benign, by the way, even though she may not consciously intend any harm: She is, after all, the one who sent Neo on the path to the Core.)

Neo's first task is to rescue the Keymaker (Randall Duk Kim, doing his best Rick Moranis impression) from the Merovingian, who is a daemon�in both senses of the word�left over from a previous version of the Matrix. (The Merovingians were the ruling Frankish dynasty; they were succeeded by Charlemagne's family, the Carolingians, and then by the Capetians, who thought they were descended from Christ.) The guy in the health food store where I buy my granola and soy milk thinks that The Merovingian was one of Neo's predecessors, but all the explanation I need, as well as the way I understand his obvious fascination with human pleasures, is found in Genesis 6:4�"There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them. . ." According to various sources, including Kabbalah, this mating of men and angels (here, a computer program from an earlier version of the Matrix) is what produced various monsters, such as the vampires and wraiths that serve the Merovingian. Dante, bringing a Christian sensibility to the proceedings, placed these monsters in his Inferno. Thus, though the Merovingian is sort of an antediluvian remnant of the former world, he's also (as is shown by the fact that his wife is named Persephone) kind of like Hades, the holder of the keys to the underworld. What the Keymaker does, much like the golden bough the Sybil gives Aeneas, is open doors and permit Neo access to the underworld�or, in this case, the Core.