eXistenZ

I want to start by saying Esistenz was a bizarre film with a lot of twist and turns. Had I not known that the abstract movie had a philosophical background I would not have been able to follow the movie. There was artistic symbolism, metaphors and imagery that sets this 1999 film apart from most other films. From the stand point of virtual reality, the movie illustrates a game depicted as an abstract reality. A reality that can fit into Plato’s Hierarchical Scheme of Reality.

 Reality being “unchanging concepts or ideals transcend time and space” (Erica Cummings of study.com). In this movies instance reality seems to be the concept of trust and “friendliness”. The character Allegra Geller asks character Ted Pikul, before porting into the game eXistenZ if he is friendly. She also asks again later on in the movie. Friendliness is a sign that there will be a lack of malice or ill will. That is something that is universal in every level of reality in the movie. First the 12 “players” porting into the game must trust that one another won’t “freak out”. Secondly Allegra’s character and Pikul’s character must trust each other to escape the people who are trying to kill Allegra’s character in the game. Lastly this concept of friendless or trust comes to a reversal when Pikal turns on Allegra saying he was in fact targeting her the entire time. He was actually studying what he was sent to kill, which was Allegra and her “game”. Allegra then turns it around on him, where she says she knew he was targeting her. She then blows up the device she entered into his spine that she claimed was there to heal him. So this concept of watching the ones closest to you is universal throughout.

Furthermore there are levels of reality depicted as virtual reality to an extent where you can hardly tell when they are “in the game” or not. You never really find out until the end that in the majority of the movie they were actually in the game until the last scene. In the last scene the abstract pieces turn into pieces that are more realistic. Examples of this is first were the game pods. They turned from fleshy odd shaped items to plastic hand and head pieces similar to virtual reality games we use today. Secondly there were the weapons they used. In the game the weapons were made of flesh and bone and shot teeth instead of bullets but in that last scene in the church they were regular handguns that shot bullets.

I want to lastly point out the last thing that was said after Allegra and Ted killed the original game creator. The man at the door said “ Hey tell me the truth, are we still in the game?”. That line in itself depicted Plato’s theory of people being “sleep” or not aware of what true reality is. In short Plato says people get sucked into things like religion and what’s now media and don’t even know what reality is anymore. That’s shown here when people are so into “the game” that they no longer know the difference between it and the real world.

Source:

Study.com, Study.com, study.com/academy/lesson/the-theory-of-forms-by-plato-definition-lesson-quiz.html#:~:text=Plato’s Theory of Forms asserts that the physical realm is,in the Realm of Forms.

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