2.12 - THE MATRIX RELOADED (2003) & Free Will

The Prestige

We continue our forays into the world of the Matrix, with the Wachowskis’ 2003 sequel. The reviews are unsurprisingly different, and we then get into some interesting discussions of viruses, narrative bloat, how much choice is involved in the narration (and indeed consumption) of the film, and why this movie becomes about love of different kinds (fatherhood has turned Rob into the sentimental type).

This Week’s Watching
ANTHONY BOURDAIN: PARTS UNKNOWN (2013–): Anthony Bourdain
TRAVEL MAN (2015–): Richard Ayoade
SICARIO (2015): Denis Villeneuve, Emily Blunt, Benicio del Toro

Recommendations
IRRÉVERSIBLE (2002): Gaspar Noé, Monica Bellucci, Vincent Cassell
JUPITER ASCENDING (2015): Lilly Wachowski, Lana Wachowski, Channing Tatum
V FOR VENDETTA (2006): James McTeigue, the Wachowskis, Natalie Portman
JOHNNY MNEMONIC (1995): Robert Longo, Keanu Reeves, Dolph Lundgren

Footnotes
The Wachowskis (see last week’s footnotes for a discussion of whether or not they were brothers at the time of these early films…) share their thoughts on the choices made by an audience here. Sam was about to go off on one about the dystopian depictions of Zion, Hieronymus Bosch, and Fritz Lang’s 1927 film METROPOLIS, before we had a recording malfunction; you can either offer thanks for the fact everyone was spared this, or read more here and here. There are some contributions to discussions on some of the themes of this week’s episode, of varying quality, here and here. Finally, names: more on 'Merovingian', ‘Persephone’ and ‘Morpheus’.