The Matrix Reloaded: Deconstructing The One

OK. This is part three of my series on the much misunderstood and under-rated Matrix Trilogy.

Part One The Matrix Revealed

Part Two The Matrix Decoded

This chapter will focus on four key scenes in the second movie, The Matrix Reloaded. This is the introductory part one, part two will go into the four key conversations and part three will address the evolving relationships and wrap up my commentary.

In addition there are three key relationships that are very important to the unfolding story and it's meaning. The second movie in the trilogy turns the mythology from the first movie upside down, deconstructs our expectations and takes us further down the rabbit hole than most audience members have been willing to go. The film is difficult to follow because it is philosophically dense, but that density pays off richly with a little patient persistence.

This film is really a journey that takes us through four different conversations broken up by action sequences and signs that three key relationships are transforming...

Four Key Conversations

1) Neo with The Oracle

2) Neo with Smith

2) Neo, Trinity and Morpheus with the Merovingian

3) Neo with The Architect


Three Key Relationships

1) Neo and Trinity

2) Neo and Morpheus

3) Neo and Smith

The four conversations cited above instantly registered as very important the first time I saw the film in the theater - but they were almost impossible to completely follow. This is a serious flaw with regard to the movie-making - but one of the understandable hazards of creating an artistic vision this complex and ambitious. I can only imagine that the Wachowskis thought that there was enough amazing action, CGI and archetypal resonance in the second and third movie to carry most viewers and that the serious interpreters would be willing (in fact delighted) to sit through multiple viewings and get the deeper meanings.

The three relationships are evolving, as are the characters and they demand that we evolve with them in awareness - that we call into question our own assumptions from the first film, as well as what those assumptions are rooted in viz our own cultural and religious conditioning.

 In addition to these elements, we are being asked to consider the relationships between the three worlds - the matrix, Zion, and the machine world. Ken Wilber argues that these represent the mind (the matrix), the body (Zion) and {surprisingly!} spirit (the machine world). I would argue too that the three films each emphasize (in order) mind, body and spirit - but more on that later....

The Set-up

So we left off with an important closing scene from The Matrix. Smith shoots Neo in room 303. As i said above there are three realms that we are being asked to consider. Ultimately the trilogy points to the necessity of integrating all three realms. In her important conversation with Neo, The Oracle says "i am interested in one thing Neo - the future, and believe me, the only way we can get there is together..."

Smith shoots Neo multiple times and our hero dies on the floor, smeared blood following his graceless slide down the wall. Outside the matrix, Morpheus cannot believe it. "It can't be..."  Trinity stands gazing down at Neo's jacked in body and says "Neo I am not afraid anymore, The Oracle told me I would fall in love and that the man I loved would be The One..." She kisses him and he rises from the dead (in the matrix).

Now the game is completely different. Trinity believes in Neo, she loves him, she has infused him with that energy and he rises with a new level of power. Neo stops the bullets (for the first time) from the agent's guns - and when he looks down the hallway at the agents he sees them as shimmering lines of energy/code. Morpheus: "He is The One.." He is awakening. Smith attacks him with his kung fu moves but Neo is always two steps ahead, and can suddenly move at twice the speed, anticipating Smith's frenzied attempts with a half-bored, half-sanguine expression. He kicks Smith across the hallway and then runs at him, diving directly into Smith's body. Smith's body ripples as he struggles with the invasion - and then he gets fragmented into light and Neo stands in his place....

So we have at the end of Matrix I the first intimations of of three things :

1) Neo and Trinity are in it together and their love is an important element of the redemption - this of course is in stark contrast to the messianic archetype we have been presented with thus far.

2) Likewise Morpheus' master/student, baptist/savior vision/dogma is limited and in some ways doomed.

3) Smith and Neo's relationship is less black and white, good and evil - Neo is able to overcome Smith by embracing him, or in this case literally getting inside him.....

Something significant has been achieved at the end of the first film and the Nebuchadnezzar is saved at the last minute from being destroyed by the machines. The final  sequence shows Neo leaving a phone message for whomever runs the matrix, promising a world without them, with telling adolescent swagger he promises to "show these people a world without rules and controls, boundaries and borders" and introduces the central theme of Matrix II "I don't know how this will end..... where we go from here is a choice I will leave up to you..."

Neo doesn't know it yet but this is an arrogant one-sided preview of a complex , humbling and revelatory conversation he will have with the creator of the matrix, The Architect.

I want to enthusiastically invite those of you following along as readers or making comments to rent the first two movies. Watch both films in preparation and then be ready to revisit the key conversations I have listed above as we continue...This will deepen the dialog, as well as you appreciation for what happens in Matrix II - Let's play!

Reloaded

We begin at the climax of the movie, revealed as Neo's  premonitory dream sequence. Trinity  dies in a mid-air gun battle with an agent as they plummet from a high-rise office building in the matrix. Neo is tortured by his knowing that he will have to face a situation in which he could lose the woman that he loves. This is central to our story now, as we transition out of the Abrahamic savior archetype who (in this case) is doing battle with his mind inside the matrix in order to save humanity - and into a consideration of the more European individualist mythology of romantic love, embodied Eros and personal existential choice...

So far we have been in a Manichean story of good vs evil, humans vs machines, the matrix vs the desert of the real, enslavement vs freedom. Neo has been cast as the Jesus/Buddha figure, Morpheus as the Baptist/Initiating Master/Prophet. Smith would in that case be a kind of powerful demonic figure working for the great Satan. All of this is very familiar and we know who to root for, we want to "believe," we trust the Oracle, we identify with Neo's heroic journey. He will sacrifice everything so that humanity can live - and in the traditional role he is playing there is no room for personal life, and especially for Eros and romantic love.

But it is the erotic kiss and the pledge of love that Trinity gives to Neo after Smith has killed him in Matrix I that resurrects him and initiates his new abilities - he cannot do it alone!

Soon we find out too that Smith is able to travel outside of the matrix, he has been somewhat liberated by his interactions with Neo and can come after him now into the real world. Smith has unplugged himself - he delivers his secret service-esque earpiece in an envelope to Neo, and has a revealing conversation with him about apparent freedom, choice and the inevitability of purpose.

So - onward to The Four Key Conversations from the Matrix Reloaded...