". . . I'm in . . . ." -Trinity

It begins in the dark, a diffuse, green-filtered light illuminating a low-resolution image, a logo with visible scan lines, a digital trace punctuating the cinematic field. As the camera moves back, the screen momentarily dissolves to white; the camera continues to pull back, revealing another low-res 3D logo; the screen goes to black, as numbers and letters appear at the top of the screen, cascading down in an alpha-numeric "rain," their rhythm vaguely reminiscent of early space-invaders-type video games. In the center of this field the title appears, and is subsequently absorbed, breaking up as the camera moves in, dissolving into a field of noisy fractals. As the camera continues its trajectory the green noise resolves into a secondary field of alpha-numeric characters, ciphers tracing the contors of ghostly three-dimensional shapes, forms which finally coalesce into the hands of a clock, converging on the numeral 12, a possible reference to midnight, the darkest hour, when it is impossible to distinguish light from dark. . .

"Good morning." The first words pronounced in this space confirm midnight, in a corporate lobby, shift change for security personnel. Cut to a motorcycle flying through the air in a ballistic arc, as Trinity, in skin-tight black leathers, catapaults backward, away and down, landing in the foreground as the bike explodes; cut to a wide angle shot of the explosion, and back as Trinity engages in the first of many fight sequences. The battle is swiftly concluded, and Trinity picks up a phone and says ". . .I'm in . . ,." the words marking the transition from exterior "real" space into the illusory reality of the Matrix. At the precise moment that she speaks these words there is a glitch-a momentary destabilization of the surface of the image, a hint of green-which induces a proleptic break in the spatio-temporal continuity of the narrative-and suddenly Trinity is elsewhere.(1) As soon as she pronounces the phrase that confirms her presence in the Matrix, Trinity is immediately displaced, cast into another place, into what appears to be a representation of the space of the Matrix. She finds herself in trouble; she is pursued, runs through a plate glass window, turns and falls as she fires at her assailant, an Agent who takes aim at her, leaping out the same window in pursuit. Time slows, as they both fall, firing; she is mortally wounded, and her body impacts a parked car; there is an immediate cut to black, and the next shot opens on a close-up of Neo's eye. It is midnight, and he gently disengages from his embrace of Trinity, who is still asleep.

What has happened here? Was this a memory (flashback)? A premonition (flashforward)? Or some more exotic species of prognostication (such as we might find in a dream, delirium, or deja vu)? It may even have been a memory of a memory. It is, as we come to learn, all of the above: a dislocution in time and space which arrests and punctures the present, a "frozen moment" of prophecy, inscribing itself into the narrative as a foreshadow. Such foreshadowings and recognitions (prolepsis and analepsis) appear throughout The Matrix Reloaded, indicated by minimal cinematic cues, marked by one or another type of glitch, indexical signs which signal - from somewhere else - that something is happening, and that things are not as they might seem.

In these first few minutes we learn, or recollect, a great number of things that will shape what comes later. These are important details. And such brilliance as The Matrix Reloaded has lies in the patterning of such small, and crucial, details. Plot, storyline, and even character development, are minimal, even ascetic, and fairly conventional. Of course it is an "action film" and so requires but the barest armature to support its forward narrative momentum. There is a good deal of talking, too, and a lot of it is stiffly formal and quite boring. The special effects - though it is approximately one fight-scene too long overall - are among the most relentless and compellingly sublime in recent memory. Does this add up to a great film? Provisionally, no. But that may not matter. The Matrix Reloaded begins abruptly, and ends - unexpectedly and severely - as a cliffhanger. It is profoundly unresolved. The Matrix Reloaded is, in essence, a relay, an entr'acte, a link or conduit dutifully interjecting necessary data, and probably some tactical distractions, in and among some undeniable gratifications. Like a rorschach blot, whatever meaning it will acquire will be "borrowed" from its predecessor and (the pressure is on) from its successor. Consequently it is too early to render a judgement as to whether it is a good film or not. But it is exactly this irresolution that I find most interesting. I like the permeability - one could call it intertextuality - between the two Matrix films (2) and I like the libidinal economy of the action scenes, the reflexes and tacit somatic engagement that they require of the viewer. I like that they erupt (predictably enough) out of, and (unexpectedly) fold back into the narrative through a diverse series of rhythmic visual and auditory strategies which involve the viewer in some intense and visceral identifications. This creates a constrained but decidedly interactive narrative arc, one that is less a matter of structure and story, than it is of memory, reflex, and recognition. It is perhaps a simulation of a narrative, shaped through our active involvement in a certain indeterminacy, or virtuality: an interpretability residing in the smallest of details.

Time (and Space) Out of Joint

. . . duration is no longer actual but past and constantly sinks deeper into the past . . . -Edmund Husserl

There is a complex visual/phonic choreography in every fight scene. At the point of initial contact, in the scene between Neo and the multiply replicating Agent Smith(s), for example, there is a coextensive and increasingly resonant rhythm track, a frenetic trance/techno/glitch beat which literally fills up the space between spectator and spectacle, teasing and engaging the audience, suturing our attention into a collective simulation of dance. This acute attention to sound defines and establishes the intelligibility, variability, and frequency of the bodies that traverse the screen, setting them into minutely composed configurations and intensities. Bodies vanish and appear, momentarily glimpsed, fragmented by frame, or trajectory, or the occlusion of other bodies-arrested traces of the shape of time, employing rhythm to produce a synesthesia between auditory and visual intervals, a rhythm which both mirrors, and embodies, sound/image interactivity.

Within this field another pattern of rhythms takes place simultaneously: as bodies move from a normal rate of speed to an increasingly slower pace, to a fixed and static arrestment (3), the camera, which had thus far accompanied the body, is suddenly cut loose, to circulate and move freely in and around the frozen figures. At the moment that the camera returns to a fixed relation to the body, the stasis collapses, and there is a very rapid acceleration, followed by a return to the normal temporal pace of fighting. This configuration, a standing waveform, is repeated over and over again. Moreover, the moment where static image collapses into accelerated motion is always at the point of impact of a physical blow, such that the recipient of the blow - Neo, or most often Agent Smith - moves uncannily across the screen, engaging an unconscious reflex, a hardwired, and unconscious, orientation in our perceptual system to unexpected novelty in the visual field. This is unusual and quite effective. Where other films use a combination of wirework and digital post-effects to construct an image - I am thinking of Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, for example, where special effects are used to compose a spectacle - the Wachowski brothers use such effects as an edit. This effect is heightened and subtly modelled by the soundtrack, producing a complex interplay of visual and auditory rhythm.

Rhythm is used in a similar way in the "rave in the cave" scene in Zion, after Morpheus's oration. Music starts and people begin to dance. The camera frames the distant, moving, crowd, and then cuts to a close-up of Neo and Trinity, who take the opportunity to leave the chamber for a more private setting. The camera will continue to intercut between these two sites, the communal and the intimate. At the same time the intensity of the music grows; bodies, increasingly mobile and sensuous, are framed in medium and long shots, intercut with very close intimate shots of Trinity and Neo. Tension builds, the crowd becomes more frenetic as the lovers lose themselves in the rhythm; the entwined dancing bodies become increasingly more energetic, and there are brief flashes of nudity, as the camera cuts back to Neo and Trinity just as they approach climax, completing a visual and rhythmic circuit where the erotic charge of the bodies in the chamber is lent to the slow, at times almost static movements of the lovers. This metonymic transfer very effectively underscores the libidinal tensions of both collective and individial, so that when there is an abrupt eruption of a flashback-a memory trace (4) of Trinity's impending fate: a premonition taking the place of orgasm-the sudden silence is shocking.

Again these are details, small elements, a probabilistic spread of data-fragments through which the film makes sense, and suggests possibility. Like the diagnostic system of rorschach blots, The Matrix Reloaded is both secretive and overdetermined, and requires our collusion, our investment in its promise, to move forward.

The Hacker, Hacked: Neo as Interface

". . . hmmmmm . . . upgrades . . ." - Neo

As in every sequel, memory and intertextuality - and to a lesser extent implication and revision - play an important role in forming the perceptions that shape the evolving narrative. It is not only our own memories of The Matrix which re-ground the world of The Matrix Reloaded, but the structure of intra-textuality that is continuously set up in the second film. References circulate freely, backward and forward in time, confirming what we see, or know, consciously or unconsciously, at any given moment.

For example it is important to recall that Thomas Anderson/Neo was "hacked." Not just once, but many times over. The first such instance occurred, we must presume, at the moment of conception, when the undifferentiated mass of fissioning cells that was to have become Neo was first linked to a register of technical/cybernetic control. This invasive integration of biological and machinic "organisms" (5) was the first "hack." Corporate software developer Thomas Anderson, in his alter-ego as the hacker Neo, was then hacked by Morpheus, resulting in Neo's expulsion from the Matrix. (Don't forget that Neo, Morpheus, Trinity, et al, are all constructs - they are simulations whose conceit is the preservation of a stylishly improved but coherent imago, or body-image, of their "real-world" being.) In The Matrix Reloaded it is suggested that there is a random recursive algorithm overwritten on Neo's simulation, such that it intuitively "randomizes" the Matrix, so that in effect Neo hacks Thomas Anderson, introducing the very skepticism about the world that brings him within reach of Morpheus, an "auto-deconstruction" which hacks itself to become the One. It doesn't stop: Neo hacks the Matrix, regains access, and begins - like a virus - to rewrite its base protocols. As Neo gains mastery over his environment he encounters, and hacks, Agent Smith. When Agents inside the Matrix hack human intruders, they are erased. When Neo hacks Agent Smith the precise invers occurs: Agent Smith is not erased, but "released." He is, as he speculates, "imprinted, or overwritten" by his encounter with Neo; Agent Smith has acquired the capacity to copy himself (essentially hacking the Matrix, which he is no longer in thrall to) and to hack other Agents as well as human intruders. Agent Smith has hacked Bane, who becomes "possessed" in the exterior, "real" world of Zion. Agent Smith, now a 'free agent' allies himself (momentarily?) with the purpose of the Matrix, and performs a hack upon the real world from within the simulation. Bane will play a central role in the machine's attack on Zion.

In the meantime, Neo - with the aid of the Keymaker - has hacked the Source and confronted the Architect; where he is presented with a problem. The problem is choice - to save Zion, or to save Trinity. He chooses (freely?) the latter, and in the last possible moment catches her, near the terminus of the fall we have seen prefigured so many times. Trinity has been shot, and Neo hacks her simulation to remove the (simulated) bullet, but Trinity dies. Neo, like Agent Smith, then hacks the exterior real-world, using Trinity's simulation as an interface, to bring her back to life. Zion, in the mean time has fallen, and the crew of the Nebuchadnezzar are pursued by sentinels deep in the bowels of the earth. The ship is destroyed, and, just as the fleeing crew is about to be taken by the sentinels, Neo stops. "Something's different. . . I can feel them . . ." He turns, holds out his hand to ward off the machines, and in a blue actinic flash stops them dead. Having performed this final hack - transposing his intra-Matrix powers to the external world - Neo collapses in a coma.

"Ghosts, Angels, Vampires, Werewolves, Aliens" : The Paranormal as Glitch

Man makes man in his own image. This seems to be the echo or the prototype of the act of creation, by which God is supposed to have made man in His image. Can something similar occur in the less complicated ...case of the nonliving systems that we call machines?.... Can the ... machine itself act as an archetype, even to its own departures from its own archetypal pattern? - Norbert Wiener

It is hardly surprising that in the process of modeling organisms and machines, each upon the other, even down to their integration as a single, composite, being, that not only do they come increasingly to resemble each other, but that as they do so both organisms and machines undergo critical changes. Phantasms, dreams of strange things, whether they arise within us, between us, or within the cognitive architectures of the machine-world, come to resemble - in the Matrix - a recognizable register of supernatural events and paranormal figures. Ghosts, angels, vampires, werewolves, aliens, dreams and delusions, prophecy, premonition, and déjà vu reflect and simulate themselves within and in contradistinction to normal everyday sense-perceptions and experience. But the real world upon which distinctions between normal and paranormal are modeled is gone, destroyed in the first stages of the war between men and machines. All that remains is a memory trace, represented within the confines of the matrix, but common to both exterior and interior worlds (and to that of the audience). There is an elegant economy of signs articulated in the world of the Matrix to indicate the presence or impending appearance of the paranormal. Glitches - visible puncturings or destabilizations of the technological index of photographic verisimilitude inscribed on the surface of the screen - serve to indicate the uncanny. They are a wonderfully appropriate deus ex machina, since the very machine-cinema and its subsequent mediations - is right there in front of us. Any shimmer or glitch - the circular compression wave as Neo leaps into the air, the traveling wake as he flies through the city, the aftershocks of explosions, various species of technological traces flashing across the screen, or alpha-numeric POV shots - all serve to ground the eruption of the uncanny in the (already uncanny simulated) world. It is an effective strategy, one cobbled out of spoken clues, memories, and the foregrounded "evidence" of strange goings on. It also serves as a reasoning for the existence of "exiles" - surviving programs or appelets of superceded but undeleted code-including the Oracle, the Keymaker, the Merovingian, Persephone, the Twins and an innumerable host of other revenant avatars, including, possibly, Neo himself. Is a simulation of the uncanny real? Is a simulation of the real uncanny? What is the relation between the two?

"...me, me, me...": the Technical Reproducibility of Agent Smith

Of course one might propose that all of the characters in The Matrix Reloaded might at some point serve as a deus ex machina. Neo, by having hacked Agent Smith, performs this function: an anomaly from outside the system that radically affects the interior ecology of the system. Agent Smith could not free himself; as a program he would have needed his own production as a "free agent" to free himself. Like DNA whose maintenance and transcription is mediated by proteins, which are precisely what is encoded; to carry on the program it must already have been executed. It is the classical problem of the chicken or the egg, a paradigmatic example of what is called "the logic of the supplement."

The problem of development or evolution is expressed by the Architect as a problem of "choice." The recursive algorithm that "becomes" Neo was insinuated into the Matrix through the Oracle, which was designed as an "intuitive program" to operate as a system-wide heuristic, guaranteeing the existence of an anomalous one percent of the human population would resist the Matrix, thus insuring that 99 percent of its human subjects would ("consciously or unconsciously") choose to be integrated into the Matrix. But such anomalies are entropic, and the system has crashed and rebooted at least five times in the past. Does the system learn? Is there a threshold-chaotic state wherein something not only quantitatively, but qualitatively new, takes place?

Take the pluralized Agent Smith. Through his encounter with Neo he is now capable of technical reproducibility to an unknown degree, with minimal distinction between incarnations. The notion of an original Agent Smith is moot. Agent Smith is a crowd, a growing mass; he has what Walter Benjamin might have called massenweise - a mass-like quality, not only in that he is no longer taking place in and as a unique being, here and now, nor simply as a mere collection of individual copies - but as a critical mass. As such, the notion of his original purpose is lost (his aura, in Benjamin's terms, is diminished through reproduction). He has in fact taken leave (ablösen) of his former senses, his movement free of purpose is one of detachment (ablösen), so that Agent Smith returns to mimic his former purpose, to adapt/adopt that which was taken from him, and make it his once again (though there would have been no such possessive as "his" possible while Smith was still an agent of the Matrix). The questions begged by the transformation of Agent Smith are left tantalizingly unresolved.

Doing that Superman Thing: Familiar Pleasures, Annoying Clichés

As bodies fly through the air there is both an arrestment of the camera-eye and a separation of the deictic "here and now" of the event so that time is both attenuated and dilated in the same moment. This happens again and again in a proliferating series of images - poses - to produce a mass-like "pictoriality," a succession of tableaux vivants, a pattern of frozen momentaufnamen (snapshots). There is an excess, a surplus of energy and tension, in the artifice of arrestment, which engages us in its release (it is sometimes as simple as finding ourselves holding our breath as the image is fixed, and releasing it as movement resumes). Traces of the photochemical and digital residue of motion - blurs, interstitial doublings - mark the space as real, by transposing the marks of documentary cinematography, to operate as a relay between elements in the mise-en-scene. That is to say, as edits, suturing disparate actions into an orchestrated whole. It's like an instant replay of the moment as it happens, and it is quite seductive. Where it breaks down is when there is an order of predictability or familiarity. Neo's soaring glide above the clouds, with a black cape billowing behind him to strike a pose, before zeroing in on his destination, is gratuitous and unmotivated. In a similar manner I suspect that the rave in the cave scene in Zion, while it performs certain necessary tasks, will not age well at all, and even now is an unconvincing neo-tribal/primitivist clichˇ that does a disservice to representing everyday life within Zion. But perhaps most disappointing is the representation of Zion itself. By now such blue-filtered exemplars of industrial decay and ruin as we see in Zion are altogether too predictable. Adding yet another minor incremental patina to the image of the city that serves as our default Moloch, Zion is based on the figure of urban decay that we have seen modeled over and over again in 12 Monkeys, The Terminator, Blade Runner, Total Recall, Aliens, etc. Strip away the neon, the steam-punk kinematics, and the impacted environmental squalor, and you have, as Mike Davis has suggested in his critique of Blade Runner, the same modernist city: Manhattan, circa the early 20th century. It is too easy a cliché, and consequently it is a serious compromise of the film's imaginary future. As Davis has suggested, speculation on the evolution of almost any other city would, in the end, not produce such an image.

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