The Matrix

The phobia addressed in The Matrix is an intangible one.  Until the truth of the Matrix is revealed, it doesn't seem like there's anything to fear.  You could live your whole life in ignorant bliss, to quote Cypher, grow old and die, seemingly in the real world, when in fact you are an overdeveloped fetus in a pod attached to a machine somewhere.  But if you take the red pill and wake up in that pod, you finally realize what's so terrifying about the Matrix: claustrophobia.  You are trapped inside this system.  You might not be able to see, hear or feel it, but you are trapped inside that pod.

This sense of claustrophobia is probably best captured in the film's most infamous sequence: Neo chooses the red pill, then touches a mirror, only to find its material growing on him, covering his body and travelling down his throat.  We cut from an interior shot of that throat to a p.o.v. of Neo's real-world predicament.  Everything about this sequence shows us Neo's ignorant perception butting up against the claustrophobia of his situation.  He is terrified of the reflective material coating his body uncontrollably, encasing and trapping him.  The camera travelling down Neo's throat traps us with him, and meanwhile indicates that there is a tube sticking down his throat in the real world.  The liquid mirror is a kind of symbol for Neo's body recognizing that it is surrounded by fluid.  Indeed, this sequence has some disturbing imagery, but is most terrifying for putting us in Neo's shoes as he discovers just how trapped and powerless he really is.

The Matrix explores the most viscerally terrifying aspects of its subject matter in another well-known scene: treacherous Judas figure Cypher decides that he will give Morpheus to the Agents, and kill off the crew of the Nebuchadnezzar, in exchange for being returned to the blissful ignorance of life in the Matrix.  With the crew split up inside the Matrix, Cypher exits, shoots the two conscious crew members, and proceeds to unplug the rest of them.  As Neo and the others gradually realize what's happening, the horror of this situation is best summed up by one crew member's last words: "not like this".  It's a chilling way to go, being aware of the fact that your life is in the hands of someone looming over your unconscious body.  The parallel editing between the crew in the Matrix standing around, and their helpless forms in real life, as Cypher first gets creepily intimate with Trinity, then toys with Neo in humiliating fashion, convey the same sense of impotence.  The only reason Neo and Trinity survive this is essentially a Deus Ex Machina, as one of the conscious crew members recovers from his injury and kills Cypher.  As powerful as Neo might become, even once he realizes he is the One, all it takes is one weak-willed team member back in reality, and he can essentially die of an aneurysm.




Outside of the sense of claustrophobia provided, the Wachowskis employ some more cryptic techniques to establish a sort of visual continuity throughout the film.  The aforementioned scene of Cypher looming over Trinity's unconscious form, lamenting his feelings for her, is paralleled in the climax of the film in less sinister fashion, when Neo has seemingly been killed, and Trinity leans over his body, confessing her love to him.  Soon afterward, when Neo has been established as The One and exercises his powers, he freezes a hail of bullets in the air and causes them to fall.  This cuts to a shot of a screen on the Nebuchadnezzar
, with the iconic "falling data" image paralleling the bullets.  Ultimately, almost all of the imagery and editing in The Matrix is about drawing that line between the Matrix world and real life.

Works Cited
The Matrix. Prod. Andy Wachowski and Lana Wachowski. Dir. Andy Wachowski and Lana Wachowski. By Andy Wachowski and Lana Wachowski. Perf. Keanu Reeves, Carrie Ann Moss, and Laurence Fishburne. Warner Bros., 1999.