Film Components in The Matrix

Soon after, Neo the hacker, is questioning the truth of this entire world, which is seemed to be normal. And, he meets Trinity, an other hacker. The leader of the Nebuchadnezzar, Morpheus tells him the actual real world is controlled by a computer artificial intelligence system called “The Matrix”, humans are only like animals raised by them without any freedom and thoughts. And, Neo is the only savior who can rescue the humans. However, the road to salvation can never be smoothed, so where will the actual real world be? Will Neo be strong enough to start a war fighting for the humans? Is Neo the only hope of all humanity? This is the empire of the hackers, the source and code welcome everyone to “The Matrix”. The central theme of “The Matrix” (1999) is narrating between the blurred boundaries of machines and humans. In the following, I will go through “The Matrix” with three different aspects, location, set design and costumes to indicate what is this film communicating about reality and virtuality and how it communicates with these ideas.

For location, the first aspect of meaning we look at when we want to ‘read' a film is the setting. When and where a film is set can tell us much about the ideas the filmmaker are trying to communicate. “The Matrix” is set at the actual real world, the Machine City, Zion the underground human city and some unnamed cities in the matrix in both 1999 and 2199 approximately. In the actual real world, which is set in 1999, people are connect through lines on the back of their head to the world, which is create by the matrix when they are first born. So in this 'virtual world', people are living like you and me who have to experience the same fate of humankind, people never discover their 'real body' ...

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...he style of costumes is representing neither the reality nor the virtuality. For instance, she is wearing standard clothes in Zion, but black bodysuit in the matrix. The agents in the matrix wear dark green suits with golden outline, white shirts inside and black shoes. The dark green suits refers to the matrix as the color of green represents the matrix in this film. The agents wear black sunglasses as same as Trinity.

The twentieth century in this film, the familiar world that humans believe it as a reality, is actually an interactive virtual reality world control by the matrix. Since always, humans in this world are living in their dreams. If todays world, the twenty-first century, is really like what is happening in “The Matrix”. So how can we wake up from it? By our mind? Same as one of the key scripts in this film says: “The Matrix has you.” Yes, all of you.