How does Existenz, the film, fit into Plato’s hierarchical scheme of reality? How does the game, Trancendenz fit?
The movie existenz has a great fit into Plato’s hierarchical scheme of reality. In the movie the characters are introduced in what the audience thinks is the physical world, but they characters of the movie are really already involved in a game simulation. So from Plato’s view the characters from the beginning of the film, are in “the cave” or a world which feels like reality. As they continue to play the game, or the audience assuming is the physical world, the characters step into another game world or “another painting of the cave” as Plato would put it. This movie is full of rabbit holes and there is this constant paradox and questions of “Are they in the real world?” As the movie keeps on asking this question, Plato’s cave analogy and thoughts continue to ask us the same question.
As the movie kept pulling away from each game simulation, or what we thought and even the characters thought was the physical world, we are revealed at the end of the movie that what seemed to be the physical world could have been another game simulation, as the character at the end of the movie says, “Tell me the truth are we still in the game.”
It is interesting to notice throughout the film characters constantly touching things and gripping walls, tables, chairs, and other objects with no hesitation of its realness, which later proves to be a dilemma because the characters themselves are not even sure what is real or the game anymore. Just as the movie shows this, Plato’s thesis tells us the same thing. Plato is constantly mentioning how we can’t trust reality because he is unsure of what is real because everything in “the cave”, which he believes we are all in, has become so real to us that we cannot differentiate what is real. Overall this movie did a decent job revealing Plato’s ideas but that still doesn’t mean that this stuff doesn’t make my head throb any less.
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Really Deep Feelings That Are Just Being Talked About 
In the beginning of the movie, as soon as that suspicious guy pulled out his weird skeleton looking gun and shot at Allegra, I already had this feeling that they were already in the game, and the shooting wasn’t really reality but just in the game. However, as the movie progressed and the game kept going on, I found myself questioning if they were in the game still like I thought, or if they were in reality and the shooting actually happened. So, like you said, this movie makes even us the audience get confused between what is real or not in terms of the storyline. This just goes to show how art, depending on its form, can be used to mislead people.
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Yes, I believe the same thing and you explained it very well. I like how you mention that the characters are constantly gripping and touching things without hesitation because they aren’t really sure if it is “real” or what. I didn’t notice that, or I pay attention to it but that’s a great observation.
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Excellent analysis of the eXistenz. This move was definitely filled with twists and turns that keeps me on edge as to whether they we’re in the real word or not. I noticed the same thing as well, when it came to the characters touching object as a confirmation of its realness. Keep up the good work!
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