As you probably know, this is one of my favorite films and probably my favorite Cronenberg film. It's a film that grows on you the more you watch it. One thing is the way the reality has limitations the way games do. The motel they stay at doesn't have a name. It is just a big "MOTEL." And the Chinese restaurant is "CHINESE RESTAURANT." There's also the stereotypical characters and the terrible accents of Don McKellar and Ian Holm (the latter made explicit in the after-game discussion).
The film probably is Cronenberg's hardest to watch. The whole Trout Farm sequence makes me nauseous just to think about. And I've watched the film a dozen times.
I think the ending is good. It all unravels well. I do, however, think that section shows signs of the limited budget. The one thing I've been questioning in recent years is the epilogue. It's a bit too neat. I think it works. And it is very much in keeping with Cronenberg as a writer. But the question it ends on really isn't a question. They may not be still in the game but they are *definitely* still in the movie. So that line comes off like a taunt, "Did you just waste an hour and a half?"
"The Matrix" connection is interesting to me. Because there were a number of films like it made at that time, including "Dark City" a year earlier. It's only been in the last few years that I've seen film as a constant artistic conversation where everything comments on everything else. And most important: nothing is ever all that new -- at least not with a professional budget.
But as I said, I love this film. I love "Dark City" and "The Matrix" too. But they reflect what people were thinking at the time. Not any kind of artistic breakthrough.
Hah -- I hadn't thought of the last line like that! And there's times when that kind of "it was all a dream..." ending can really tick me off. But it didn't here, because I don't need this story "resolved," the same way I don't need to know what the Realists actually believe in (or if they actually exist outside the game).
This is a fun "fugg with your head" kind of movie that gives us unexpected turns, and I like it simply on that level. In a way that gets you thinking about our relationship to computers, but not by saying something so fake-profound as to be immediately dated in five years. Actually the Realists can kind of symbolize how people can be radicalized online, if you squint the right way...
As you probably know, this is one of my favorite films and probably my favorite Cronenberg film. It's a film that grows on you the more you watch it. One thing is the way the reality has limitations the way games do. The motel they stay at doesn't have a name. It is just a big "MOTEL." And the Chinese restaurant is "CHINESE RESTAURANT." There's also the stereotypical characters and the terrible accents of Don McKellar and Ian Holm (the latter made explicit in the after-game discussion).
The film probably is Cronenberg's hardest to watch. The whole Trout Farm sequence makes me nauseous just to think about. And I've watched the film a dozen times.
I think the ending is good. It all unravels well. I do, however, think that section shows signs of the limited budget. The one thing I've been questioning in recent years is the epilogue. It's a bit too neat. I think it works. And it is very much in keeping with Cronenberg as a writer. But the question it ends on really isn't a question. They may not be still in the game but they are *definitely* still in the movie. So that line comes off like a taunt, "Did you just waste an hour and a half?"
"The Matrix" connection is interesting to me. Because there were a number of films like it made at that time, including "Dark City" a year earlier. It's only been in the last few years that I've seen film as a constant artistic conversation where everything comments on everything else. And most important: nothing is ever all that new -- at least not with a professional budget.
But as I said, I love this film. I love "Dark City" and "The Matrix" too. But they reflect what people were thinking at the time. Not any kind of artistic breakthrough.
Hah -- I hadn't thought of the last line like that! And there's times when that kind of "it was all a dream..." ending can really tick me off. But it didn't here, because I don't need this story "resolved," the same way I don't need to know what the Realists actually believe in (or if they actually exist outside the game).
This is a fun "fugg with your head" kind of movie that gives us unexpected turns, and I like it simply on that level. In a way that gets you thinking about our relationship to computers, but not by saying something so fake-profound as to be immediately dated in five years. Actually the Realists can kind of symbolize how people can be radicalized online, if you squint the right way...