Film review: Mythology of The Matrix
What
makes The Matrix so seductive and
exciting? Not the philosophy, not even the action. The real heart of this movie
is the way its amazing amalgam of Christian and Greek mythology speaks to us
more deeply than we realise. The
Matrix and
its recent sequel, The Matrix Reloaded, are set on a near-future
Earth where machines have taken over and made a world of complete illusion. All
human freedom has been eliminated except for the beleaguered community of Zion. Neo - the chosen
one - must use his miraculous powers to save Zion from the threat of
destruction by the Matrix. The plot develops at three levels: action,
philosophy, and spirituality. As an action movie, the fights and chases reach
surreal heights of absurdity, but are at least made plausible by the device
that anything is possible within the illusory world. At the level of philosophy,
the film has been focused upon for the ideas it raises about freedom of choice
and knowledge of reality. My own view is that the real message of The Matrix is at the level of mythic spirituality. A
key theme is how the Messianic remnant must overthrow the evil imperial system
in order to institute the rule of truth and justice. The story of moral victory
against the overwhelming power of a soulless machine speaks to a deep sense
that our world system has something fundamentally wrong in its organisation and
goals. Drawing on millennial visions of salvation, this spiritual theme
deserves to be the central point of analysis of the movie, in terms of how it
resonates with mythic themes at the heart of Western thought. Other major
movies are also based on this theme, notably Star Wars and the Lord of the Rings. They have also struck a deep chord with
the public through their treatment of this Messianic myth. We relate profoundly
to the idea that only the pure faith of the chosen one can save us, whether it
be Neo and his kung fu wizardry and Superman flight, Frodo Baggins and his
perilous journey to Mount Doom in Mordor to break the spell of the magic ring of power, or
Luke Skywalker and his miraculous reliance on ‘The Force’ to destroy the
imperial death star. The common salvation myth in these movies involves an
apocalyptic showdown between the forces of good and evil. The origin of this
story is the Book of Revelation, the final book of the Bible, the Apocalypse of
Saint John. Generally
regarded as too weird for normal interest, Revelation contains powerful images
which are remarkably well-known for all their strangeness. For example, it
tells of the millennial rule of the Lamb of God in the holy city of New Jerusalem, the battle of Armageddon,
the fiery wrath meted by God on the faithless city of Babylon, the four horsemen
of the apocalypse, and the mysterious prediction that the number of the beast
would be 666. Much of the strangeness of Revelation derives from its resolutely
unscientific aspects, such as its claim that the future can be predicted and
involves Messianic salvation, a claim reflected in Morpheus’
total faith in Neo. Revelation calls the saints to persevere in hope and love,
in recognition that the world around them is built on lies. Its
central story is the prophecy of the domination of the whole world by the power
of evil, and the eventual victory of the divine forces of justice, truth and
light personified in the Messiah. Lord
of the Rings, Star Wars and The Matrix are essentially newly-packaged versions of
this core Christian myth. Watching The
Matrix Reloaded, I was struck by how much it draws on Christian symbols. For
example, Neo himself is a Christ figure, his lover Trinity brings in her name
the Father, Son and Spirit, and their mission is to save Zion, itself named from
the holy city of Revelation 14. When Neo
finally meets the architect of the Matrix, we find a wealth of Biblical
undertones. In telling Neo that hope and love are meaningless, the architect
sounds rather like Pontius Pilate and his question to Jesus Christ about truth.
The choice he presents to Neo between reason and love is like Satan offering
Jesus all the power and wealth of the earth if he would deny God. The central
Christian question of whether salvation comes from faith or works also finds a
reflection in The Matrix, with the debate
between leaders in Zion on whether to rely
on faith - by relying on the chosen one, Neo - or on works - by ensuring all their
resources are deployed according to military logic. The Christian dimension of The Matrix presents a provocative parable of our society.
Jesus Christ told us we cannot worship both God and Mammon, meaning that greed
for wealth for its own sake prevents the spiritual openness we need in order to
find God. It sometimes seems that our capitalist culture promotes a fantasy world
of total selfishness rather like the Matrix, cutting people off from nature, from
God and from each other, by teaching us to place total value on material
consumption and prestige. Jesus taught that real relationships are the only
basis for life, and that reliance on false and superficial relationships causes
us to wither and die. Neo and his team have the same motive for their attack on
the Matrix as Saint Paul’s critique of Rome, namely that it seeks
to replace the truth with a lie. The power and complexity of The Matrix really start to hum when we see how the
movie goes beyond the Christian frame by drinking deeply from the ancient pagan
wells of Greek mythology. For example, Neo’s heroic quest takes him via a wise
old woman, similar to the old grey women who helped the Greek demigod Perseus find the snake-headed gorgon Medusa. The wise woman
guides Neo to two intriguingly named characters, Merovingius
and Persephone, where we also find the hideous gorgon in the form of two
Rasta-haired cool suits who then pursue the hero with ectoplasm and machine
guns. And when Neo saves Trinity from certain death, it looks just like Perseus flying in on his winged sandals to save the beautiful
princess Andromeda in the Greek myth. As an aside, it is interesting to note that
the Merovingian dynasty were the French sorcerer kings of the early Middle Ages. Secret Masonic legend says they were descended
from Jesus Christ. Books such as Bloodline
of the Holy Grail by Laurence Gardner tell how the Merovingian kings were renowned
for their secret wisdom, while official Catholic history deliberately
suppressed much of the story of Jesus. In a similar way, Merovingius
in The Matrix hints at the sense
that all is not as it appears. Perhaps his name is a mere gesture, considering
his murderous hostility to Neo’s mission, but Merovingius
does at least play an essential role in the quest by introducing Persephone. In
Greco-Roman myth, Persephone is Pluto’s bride, Queen of the Dead, and the
source of new life and the seasons. Persephone’s defiant role in The Matrix contains amazing depth of symbolism - she leads the way to the keymaker
in return for Neo kissing her with the passion he reserves for Trinity.
Persephone makes her cold lover Merovingius look like
the dark king Pluto. Her sad, beautiful passion and essential contribution to
the defeat of the Matrix allude to the role of her namesake in overcoming the
annual death of winter. Carl Jung explained how the symbols of popular myth
should be understood as archetypes - themes which resonate with deep meaning
for our lives. This archetypal mythic dimension is not just the re-packaging of
old myths, but also involves the creation of new myths for a postmodern world. The story of The Matrix has power precisely through its integration
of archetypes - the apocalypse, the heroic quest, the fear of machines, and the
biggest archetype of all, the idea that we are saved not by our own deeds but
by placing complete trust in God through Christ.
Robert
Tulip
published at http://www.ascm.org.au/jgOnline/jg2003Winter.pdf