SPOILER ALERT.
I too noticed the maybe-bizarre, maybe-not trend of "illusionary real"
movies, with _The Matrix_, _eXistenZ_, Amenabar's _Abre Los Ojos_, and _The
Thirteenth Floor_ all hitting US screens within months of each other. It is
interesting that these movies basically explore the same idea: "What if what
is real, wasn't?" but do not explore it in the same fashion.
_The Matrix_ introduces you into the false world as someone living in it
would experience, but hints -- Carrie-Anne Moss's ability to defy gravity,
Hugo Weaving's ability to remove Keanu Reeves's mouth -- are given to the
truth, until the ultimate revelation at the end of the film's first act. The
truth comes so early plotwise because _The Matrix_ is about mastering life
inside the construct.
_eXistenZ_ introduces the existence (ha) of a false, video-game world much
earlier, but the important pull of the carpet from under your feet does not
come until the end: "reality" was already a false, video-game world and the
new plane in which the story ends may be one too. The final question of the
film, posed after the speaker has just witnessed horrendous violence, is
"Are we still in the game, guys?" (paraphrased). Whereas the hero of _The
Matrix_ eventually knows The Truth, and comprehends and uses the construct
of the Matrix as a helpful tool, _eXistenZ_ leaves the audience without any
such satisfying knowledge. Instead, there is just the daunting possibility
(probability?) that we are still in the game, and we don't know the
difference.
_Abre Los Ojos_ also leaves the audience without a positive glimpse of "the
real world" by film's end. The movie is about the journey to the realization
that the hero's current reality is a dream of sorts, and the eventual
revelation of The Truth makes its hero's obtained goal similar to _The
Matrix_'s. But where _The Matrix_'s hero is left as he begins to manipulate
the construct to his benefit, _Abre Los Ojos_'s hero leaves the construct
which he had a hand in creating, surrendering to the uncertainty of "the
real world." (Sidenote: I am quite interested to see what Cameron Crowe does
with this story in his upcoming Hollywood adaptation _Vanilla Sky_.)
(As for _The Thirteenth Floor_, I do not remember it very well as I don't
think it was very good. Although I do know that the movie adds to the
"illusionary real" by introducing the concept of not only your world being
false, but of YOU being false, a creation of the random inventor of your
world.)
arthur
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