" (p. 78)
This leads us to the very question that the Wachowskis struggle with in their work, casting figures such as Neo and Trinity, or Violet and Corky, into a struggle for individualism against a culture defined by demands for uniformity and male-driven values of violence and domination. Where Bound relies on highly grounded visual effects to express this idea, the Matrix explores the very same themes using innovative and ground-breaking special effects. It is in this way that in the Matrix, as we become more aware of the fake things that once were presented as reality, that ripples begin to appear on the screen. When Neo-is 'located' in the Matrix, the scene begins with his being absorbed into a mirror. The mirror ripples unnaturally and in a way that jars with the physical rules of the real world. This is a visual effect that is repeated throughout the film, significantly in a scene in which a helicopter smashes into the side of a skyscraper and sends a fluid wave through the front of the building. It is the disruption of a computer program rather than of 'real' time and space. This is a fact of the Matrix that is evident "especially in the bullet-time sequences, [wherein] we are reminded of film's reliance upon persistence of vision, that the perception of movement and the passage of time is created with the succession of images that at first glance might be repetitive but are slightly different." (Leary, 5)
It is here and in the scene where Neo-first successfully jumps from the roof of one building to another that the audience begins to see that individualism is possible even in the face of cultural and social pressures to conform. This theme at the heart of Bound and finds its way to such visually moving expression in the Matrix. It is a meaningful reminder of the values...
It shows both the theme of resistance to a violent male-dominated society and shows a newer interpretation of classic noir film style that help to define the Wachowski Brothers as modern film-auteurs.
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