The strange cult that emerged after the movie “The Matrix”

The premiere of “The Matrix” in 1999 not only revolutionized science fiction cinema, but created a stream of followers who question reality and argue that all we see is a computer-generated simulation.

the so-called “Simulation theory” is the main focus of “A Glitch in the Matrix,” the latest documentary by American Rodney Ascher, released at Sundance and screened this week at the Karlovy Vary Festival.

With this work, the American director does not have as goal to show that we live in a simulation, but to better understand the motives of people who do believe we do.

Followers of this theory believe that they are the ones who, like Neo – the protagonist of Matrix – have chosen the “red pill” that reveals the uncomfortable truth of the universe, as opposed to the rest, which bets on the “blue pill”, which offers a reality as reassuring as it is false.

“It will take someone much smarter than me to prove or disprove this theory altogether. The idea was to show the world through the eyes of those who believe in it, exploring why they think so and its consequences,” Ascher said in an interview with Efe.

A MOVEMENT WITH MANY FOLLOWERS

A few months before the world premiere of “Matrix: Resurrections,” the new installment of the iconic sci-fi saga, simulation theory continues to have many fans around the world.

When Ascher discovered this theory, he was clear that this theme would be “the next perfect chapter” in his series of projects to explain “the blurred boundaries between reality and fiction.”

Previously the American had already directed “Room 237” (2012), on amateur theories of “The Glow”, and “The Nightmare” (2015), focused on sleep paralysis.

To create “A Glitch in the Matrix,” Ascher researched “relentlessly” for a year and began looking for protagonists to give voice to her story, many of whom volunteered when production of the project began. .

Among the people appearing in the final version of the documentary are different believers in this theory and the expert voice of Nick Bostrom, a Swedish philosopher at Oxford University who in 2003 dedicated an article to this topic.

In his attempt to better understand this theory and show the viewer the fatal consequences it can have, “A Glitch in the Matrix” tells the story of Joshua Cooke.

In 2003, when he was 20, Cooke’s level of obsession with the movie “Matrix” was such that he ended up shooting his parents to see if he lived in the real world or not.

“When I pulled the trigger, I was very disoriented because it was nothing like what I had seen in ‘Matrix.’ Real life was much more horrible,” Cook said in an interview for the documentary from prison. , where he is serving a 40-year sentence.

AN UNUSUAL PRESENTATION

The common thread that unites all the chapters into which this film is divided is the speech that the novelist Philip K. Dick gave in Metz (France) in 1977, in which he expounded, long before the Wachowski sisters in “Matrix “, the concept of computer simulated reality.

However, the great strength of the documentary is its visual aspect, which combines scenes from famous science fiction films with interviews and animations.

For conversations with “believers,” Ascher decided to show them on screen as computer-generated characters, so that the viewer hears their voices but never sees their real faces.

The director recalls that Facebook has announced a virtual office model in which to interact with co-workers in a three-dimensional computer-generated environment, and believes that this may be the basis of the work and social environment of the future.

To create these characters, Ascher enlisted the help of designer Chris Burnham and animation managers Lorenzo Fonda and Davy Force.

THE MEANING OF LIFE

The profile of people who believe this theory is very varied, and each has different motives, but, as the documentary shows, some see it as an easier way to understand the world.

This is acknowledged by one of the interviewees turned into animation, who claimed to feel overwhelmed by the complexity of the real world.

The director doesn’t consider this to be the only reason people think so, but he was “moved” by the interviewee’s courage in acknowledging it.

“Whether we live in a kind of video game or not, it’s a very powerful metaphor to explain our place in the world and our relationships with other people,” Ascher concludes.