A spiritual awakening? I think SO.....

Rating: Null/10 (12 July 2000)

Wow! 1999 has certainly been an anti-conformist year for the film industry. Not only has "The Matrix" abstractly demonstrated today's "programmed" society and how we need spiritual redemption, but other films like "American Beauty" and "Fight Club" demonstrate as part of their narrative that materials and a slave-driving, cubicle-stomping, keyboard-pushing, number-crunching computer existence robs us of our humanity.
Rife with religious and biblical inferences, "The Matrix" serves allegorically what society has become. Post World War II/1950's "American Dream" thinking that the Baby Boomers sold out to in the '70's and '80's is an outdated mode of living for their sons and daughters, who, more or less, will do the same thing. However, I feel "The Matrix" shows that there is a slim band of folks out there "in the world" who refuse to accept being lulled to sleep and choose "to live" thus repudiating what society says they SHOULD do with their lives--feed the capitalistic machine.
Inspiring as it looks, going through an "awakening" is a hard and painful process that "The Matrix" demonstrates. There is the feeling of wasted time, although when asking upon his awakening, "Am I dead?", Larry Fishburne responds, "Far from it", signaling a birth to a new person, a new life. As an example: I read an article explaining how more and more dentists, accountants, and lawyers are scrapping the desk/office job to become personal trainers. Talk about "the other end of the spectrum" right? However, this article goes in-depth of how they feel better spiritually about doing something they love to do and realizing how their inner being was bankrupt of any humanity prior to their "awakening".
To the untrained film theorist, my posit could be construde as "hogwash". I hear chants of "IT'S ONLY A MOVIE!!" as I write this. However, these stories are not written for the hell of it. The writer is trying to tell us something; the film-maker does his best to show us. With media replacing religion as the opiate of the people, it's good to see that film-makers such as these are tapped into and aware of this phenomena to inform us of who we are and where we are headed.