By Reuven Koret
July 19, 2003
PREQUEL
I saw "The Matrix: Reloaded" in Israel before leaving on an extended visit to the United States. Just before returning, I had the pleasure of experiencing the gigantic and thunderous IMAX version in New York City. The special effects are superb, there are fantastic chase and fight scenes, and some parts are truly funny. But there is much philosophical pretense, and the overall effect is blurred and ambiguous.
At times it seems a B-movie. A very expensive B-movie. Perhaps I need to see it a third time, or wait for Part Three.
And yet one thing appears clear : the latest film, intentionally or not, is the most powerful pro-Israel movie since "Cast a Giant Shadow" -- the story of the Independence War -- and "Operation Thunderbolt" -- the story of the Entebbe rescue. Not that Israel itself is even mentioned.
ACT ONE
The movie is, from start to finish, about struggling for the survival of "Zion" -- described in the first film as "the last human city. The only place we have left" -- against the machines that control the rest of enslaved, zombie-like humanity, used as their power source. More optimistically, it is said that "If the war was over tomorrow, Zion's where the party would be." Although in this case Zion has been relocated deep beneath the Earth's surface.
The sequel depicts the efforts of the messiah-like Neo, anagram of the One, played by Keanu Reeves, to lead his fellow Zionists in a last-ditch effort to repel the invasion of their nation. His comrade, Commander Morpheus, optimistically believes that the prophesied end-times have come and the end of the hundred-year-war against Zion is at hand.
At an assembly of all Zion, at "The Temple," he assures his people that because they have survived, they will prevail: "I remember that for 100 years we have fought these machines. I remember that for 100 years they have sent their armies to destroy us. And after a century of war, I remember that which matters most. We are still here!"
He calls on them to be of good cheer and remind the machines who they are dealing with. "Tonight, let us make them remember. This is Zion! And we are not afraid!"
Morpheus actually draws comfort from the approaching climactic battle, believing that it signifies the end of the wars that Zion has faced: "All of our lives we have fought this war. Tonight I believe we can end it. Tonight is not an accident. There are no accidents. We have not come here by chance?. I believe it is our fate to be here. It is our destiny. I believe this night holds for each and every one of us the very meaning of our lives."
ACT TWO
Neo -- part man, part Superman -- is the key actor in this battle, using combat training that the first flick describes, without a wink, as "Jujitsu." This technique eventually takes him into a control room where he confronts The Architect, creator of the Matrix, an icy god-as-geek who has been trying to perfect the computer program that he has developed to control the world.
The Architect tells Neo that he represents an "anomaly" -- a bug in the system -- for only he, and others like him, represented one percent of the human population that refused to accept the prevailing will of the Matrix, and instead insisted on exercising their free will. As Neo puts it, that tiny minority consciously decided to think otherwise and thus stand apart from the majority: "Choice. The problem is choice."
The Zionists were the obstacle to the smooth functioning of the Matrix, and thus endangered its future. The Architect explains: "those that refused the program, while a minority, if unchecked, would constitute an escalating probability of disaster." Neo responds: This is about Zion.
More precisely, it is about Zion's imminent destruction. The Architect tells him: You are here because Zion is about to be destroyed - its every living inhabitant terminated, its entire existence eradicated." While Neo denies this possibility, the Architect tells him that it would not be the first time: "Denial is the most predictable of all human responses, but rest assured, this will be the sixth time we have destroyed it, and we have become exceedingly efficient at it."
Indeed, Neo is invited by the Architect to make the choice to be a kind of modern-day Noah, recreating the species -- again -- on a virtual ark.
ACT THREE
The film is filled with Biblical references to those who have conspired in history to kill the Jews: Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian King who destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem, killing or enslaving its inhabitants, is the name of Neo's space ship. Haman, the extermination-minded evil councilor in the Purim story, is a sympathetic veteran Zionist councilor. Here the enemies of the Jews are transformed into allies and vehicles for Zion's defense.
The distinction of Zion -- its very existence representing an affront to the majority program -- is to have consciously chosen to be aware of "divine choice" and to set itself apart -- physically and spiritually -- from all those plugged into the Matrix. Its self-declared status as a kind of anomalous Chosen People -- not better than the others, but consciously distinct and thus freer to choose -- is what represents an intolerable affront to the powers that be.
Neo -- with his Superman-like powers -- may not exactly fit either the Jewish or Christian mold of the expected Messiah. And yet there is something in his strong but vulnerable essence that captures something of the heroic yet healing spirit embodied in the shared Biblical tradition.
Together with the battle-scarred yet believing Morpheus and his girlfriend Trinity, Neo and his fellow Zionists make standing apart from the Machine the cool and right thing to do. The choice he makes -- to choose love of and loyalty to his friends in Zion under siege -- has a high price, but it represents the moral and human thing to do. Even if it means sacrificing the human race.
Hey, it was just a movie. Maybe not even a good one. But the allegorical Zionist seeds that it planted will be digested by hundreds of millions of people. Bon appetit.
CAUGHT IN THE ACT
Of course, the brothers Wachowski may have been playing one big joke on all of us with all the high falutin' philosophy and religious allegory. Even as they rake in the big bucks.
And it is perhaps even more ridiculous for me to read deep meaning into a sci-fi action flick, or to draw from it a pretentious commentary on Zionism, or anything else for that matter. And for no big bucks.
But even if it is a joke, it is perhaps a Jewish sort of humor. Although apparently the Egyptians, who banned the movie, reportedly because of its frequent references to Zion, weren't amused.
Some will laugh at it, some with it. Some may even take it seriously. But that doesn't mean that we can't enjoy the punchline.
We can turn the attacks of our enemies into a source of power, and humor. Turn their hatred into a reason to love and celebrate Zion. After all, when the war ends, tomorrow, here's where the party will be.
We should love, and laugh, in the face of adversity, even as we fight, young and old, for our survival. Ideology may be dead, but we are here. Let's just say it's a kind of Jujitsu.
Call it Neo-Zionism.
Views expressed by the author do not
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