Life’s A Glitch
A Glitch In The Matrix
USA 2021
Directed by Rodney Ascher
Valparaiso Pictures
A Glitch In The Matrix is a documentary film by Rodney Ascher, the guy who made the popular documentary Room 237 (which I reviewed here). It seeks to explore the question, from a number of talking heads of people who tend towards believing this idea, that we are living in a simulated reality and don’t know anything of the real world at all. The title of the film comes from the popular movie The Matrix, where some people seem to imply that this is the first time they have come across this concept (although I suspect most people try and answer these existential questions in their early, pre-teen years, as did most of you reading this I would think).
The talking head ‘eye witnesses’, so to speak, are mostly hidden behind nicely animated avatars and in at least one case this is to hide the identity of the person speaking because I’m sure the director realises that once a certain, revealing scene plays out sometime in the last third of the documentary, which has quite a dramatic impact, the audiences ability to consider the various theories about the nature of our personal realities would be a lot harder to stomach.
The documentary also uses, to punctuate the various chapters which attempt to position corroborating evidence of manifestations of the idea that we are not living in anything other than some kind of computer simulation, black and white footage of the great science fiction writer Philip K. Dick addressing a room full of people in France back in 1977. I think it’s pretty much the first time he had come out about his experiences with the ‘pink light’ which was communicating various theories about his own existence (take that as you will) but, of course, Dick’s fiction had always dealt with the idea that we are all living in a fake reality and you’ll find that idea running through most of his books and stories, to a certain extent. So, yeah, Ascher has correctly identified him as a legitimate poster boy for the idea that we are living in an artificial world controlled by someone else.
And of course, most religions, including Christianity, set up the idea that we are living in a universe controlled by an overseer who has the ability to bring great change to that world... so the concept may be an easier one for many people to take on and swallow because of the number of religious institutions on the planet utilising similar, in all but name, ideas.
The documentary starts off with one of the key (and ultimately problematic) people relating an idea he’d heard in school but which I think is very interesting and relevant to a lot of things. His teacher said to him that man’s perception of how the human body and brain works is always perceived as the same as the greatest technological achievements of mankind at the time. So when the big thing was the aqueducts, man thought of various fluids controlling the body. When electricity came out, we locked onto the idea of nerve impulses to the brain being sent electronically. Now we have computers, the human brain is perceived as a computer. So, we’re basically adjusting our vision of ourselves to the technological advancements we make... which is kind of interesting.
And then, the director carries on interviewing various people, with the help of animated scenarios and montages, in order to run with the idea that we’re all just part of someone else’s simulation. So we have Elon Musk, for example, who’s obviously very much into this line of thinking and who says that the likelihood that we aren’t in a simulation is billions to one. And of course, since it’s impossible to prove we aren’t in a simulation... you have to start to take notice a little. There’s also the way we suddenly snap from one reality to another... when we wake up from a dream... which is also slung here as evidence and The Mandela Effect, illustrated by thousands of people misremembering the death of Nelson Mandela (and various other popular collective pieces of misinformation... google it), is also brought into play here as one of a few ways, like the feeling of deja vu, that you can start maybe detecting the titular glitch in the matrix, so to speak.
And then something transpires in the recollected narrative of what happens when one of the guests took what he thought was the only path to finding out if he was living in a simulation or not. And then it becomes very clear just why the director decided to go the ‘avatar route’ and also that the location from which this person is talking may not be what it seems... and then it becomes a bit of a struggle to buy into the concept a little, after a huge tragedy takes place and, lets be honest, doesn’t prove one way or the other to that particular person as to whether he is living in the matrix, so to speak.
And that’s probably my biggest disappointment with A Glitch In The Matrix, a documentary which never fails to hold the interest but which ultimately doesn’t go anywhere. The fact that nobody can prove or disprove any of the factors of ‘simulation hypothesis’ to any extent. Which is possibly because the safeties are all on regarding the human brain so we are never aware enough to be able to adequately explore these possibilities. This was a fascinating ride and it was certainly nice seeing Philip K. Dick talking about his own experiences (as detailed in what was publishable of his Exegesis) and I found it interesting that the idea of real life NPCs came up given that Free Guy (reviewed here) was released the same year as this. Ultimately, though, the film doesn’t really spell anything out and it’s obviously a silly expectation to assume it might hit on something. I enjoyed it for what it is but I’m not sure I could sit through it again, to be honest. I got something out of it but it’s not for everybody... although the idea would obviously provoke discussion. A well executed but ultimately trivial film, I would say.
