Blog post 8: Existenz

The film Existenz closely relates to the theme of Plato’s idea of reality. In both allegory of the cave and Existenz, all of the characters show signs of struggling to believe in what is real and what isn’t. The game Tranzcendenz shows players struggling to find their way through the game because they aren’t sure what’s real and what’s not. Similar to the cave, they are being shown simulations of things very much like the prisoners in the cave were seeing. The movie also shows how far people will go to believe in something even though they are unable to know for certain if that is what is real and what isn’t. For example, many of the people are chasing down Allegra in the movie because they have become so blurred with what is real and what isn’t. Comparing the movie to Plato’s hierarchical scheme of reality, Cronenburg’s ultimate message was to show his audience that there are different levels of reality that each character must traverse. For example, all of the characters start off in the game world. On Plato’s scale, this might be the 2nd or 3rd level which is non-physical world. Then the outer level, which would be considered the meta-physical level, would compare to the game as being “outside” of the game. This would be equivalent to Ted and Allegra being back in the room outside of their game pods but technically still IN the game. The outer layer or level of Plato’s level describes the mind of the human body. A scene that perfectly describes this would be when Ted starts to become aware of the game being suspicious. He exclaims, “I’m feeling a little disconnected from my real life. I’m kinda losing touch with the texture of it. You know what I mean? I actually think there is an element of psychosis involved here.” During the ending, when all characters are outside of the game, Ted and Allegra decide to shoot the creator of the game. This outer level represents the mind and can be shown at the very end when one of the game players asks if they’re still in the game. The characters start to question their own reality which is what Plato’s Allegory of the Cave was trying to show.