Screening times:
Saturday, June 20, 8:30 PM
The Wachowskis | USA | 1999 | 136m
In celebration of the 30th Anniversary of Bound and the brand new 4K restoration of Speed Racer, we’re running a new retrospective series featuring three of Lana and Lilly’s masterpieces on Saturday nights throughout June. Of course we couldn’t do that without screening their 1999 culture-defining sci-fi blockbuster, THE MATRIX.
Set in the 22nd century, The Matrix tells the story of a computer hacker (Keanu Reeves) who joins a group of underground insurgents fighting the vast and powerful computers who now rule the earth.
There are few films more influential on the 21st century action blockbusters than The Matrix. When this film was released in 1999, it went off like a bomb and it quickly became impossible to talk about the cinematic canon of science-fiction filmmaking without mentioning it.
The Matrix embodies a career-defining characteristic of the Wachowskis' body of work; they’ve never asked us to believe in the restoration of order to the world. It’s the world itself that’s wrong, that’s false, in its totality. It’s their protagonists, and us by extension, that are right. Theirs is a cinema of the art of surviving the wrong and the false, by any means necessary. Their films are interested in connections across differences among those who live on the world’s fault lines. We are who we are in spite of what’s around us. The central allegory inside The Matrix carries as much as weight today as it did back then, by denying any essentialist interpretation. It can be seen through a contemporary lens through Lilly and Lana’s transness (a reading encouraged by the directors) or by an even simpler cry out towards humanity in a world continuously moving towards digital reality. The radical embrace of self in the age of anti-autonomy.
But no matter how you read it, as with most of the Wachowskis’ films, love is our salvation and the fight scenes are really, really cool.
— Praise for The Matrix —
"The Matrix still stands up as a fiercely exciting and discombobulating futurist drama." - Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian
"The Matrix is a film about belief. Belief in yourself, in your community, in the world. You need to believe that things can get better, that the world can change. Instead of succumbing to a repressed, monotonous life you must believe in something greater than yourself. Taking a leap isn’t enough, you must backflip into self-actualization and believe you can land. Belief is reality, you can warp the world into something better. Believing in the world, that the people around you can learn to accept you. But before they learn you can live without them, be yourself with or without their understanding. Parting a sea of people and walking to a better world, surrounded by people who love and support you. I need to believe." - Audrey Cooper, Film Critic
"The deliciously inventive Wachowskis have delivered the syntax for a new kind of movie: technically mind-blowing, style merged perfectly with content and just so damn cool." - Ian Nathan, Empire Magazine
Tickets: $12.00 ($11.40 at the door if available)
