Yet another style: a film noir. Like any proper film noir, everything’s in black and white. The art style is the most realistic one yet. It isn’t as overly pointy as in Matriculated, or as overexaggerated as in World Record. And certainly not as messy as in Kid’s Story. Everything also seems to have gotten a noise filter.
The story is about a detective who accepts a case to look for Trinity. He gathers a bit of information, and then realizes that there’ve been more detectives on the same case. One killed himself, one went missing and one went crazy. The latter keeps claiming that Trinity isn’t real. The detective then continues to search through chatrooms and cafes, frequented by hackers. At one point, he finds a certain Red Queen, who happens to be Trinity.
Trinity sends the message to him that in order to meet her, he’ll have to jump the first of six brooks. This appears to be a train. Inside the train, he sees Trinity. She reckons that he might be able to make it. The entire assignment seems to have been a test for him, to see whether he would make it. She then puts some kind of machine on him, and extracts something out of his eye. It’s the same thing they tried to poison Neo with in the movie, I think.
Then a couple of men in suits appear, and chase after them. However, the detective himself begins to change into one of these men. Trinity then shoots him. Then the two of them talk a bit, and Trinity escapes.
To be honest, I didn’t really like this one. It felt like a bit too fast, and the references were all lost on me. First of six brooks? He talks about a certain Alice who jumps the second brook to get her into the woods. Alice jumps the first brook and then she boards a train. Who the heck is this Alice, why does she jump brooks, why are a number of streets highlighted on the map? How does he know which train to catch? In fact… what is a brook anyway?
I think that this film was a bit too short for its own good. I think it would be better if it borrowed some time from Matriculated. In the end, the case is interesting, though the other three films were thought-provoking. This one, however, wasn’t. I don’t seem to have any inspiration because of it.
A brook is like a small stream I believe. ‘Alice’ may be a reference to Lewis Carrol’s book ‘Through the looking glass’ (and what Alice found there). The Matrix film also referred to the first book mentioning following/going down the rabbit hole
Its all based on “Alice In Wonderland” and it’s sequel “Through The Looking Glass”.
In “Through the looking glass” Alice(in this matter: Detective Ash) had to cross 8 brooks to get to the Red Queen(in this matter: Trinity).
“Through The Looking Glass” was basicly based on a chess match. And the “Brooks” are the dividers for each square on the chess board. A Brook is basicly a big tall bush that acts like a wall. Like the walls in mazes.
In a game of chess every pawn, for the first move they make, can move forward 2 squares. Alice, being a pawn, does this and is considered “in the woods”. The only thing I can think of is “in the woods” means that she is in trouble or about to start a fight.
Ash, crossing the 2nd brook while chasing trinity, started a fight with the agents. Being as when he got on the train they got in to a gun fight.
The quote “You’ve just stepped to the edge of the looking glass” means that Ash didn’t quite make it. Because in “Through The Looking Glass” Alice actually falls in to the looking glass, however Ash did not.
After ash finds out that he has to jump the brooks, basicly crossing the streets in this matter, he sees that on the other side there is a train station. Trinity gives him a time to be there, so when he gets there he gets on the only train there.
The story was great if you actually got all the connections. I personally loved the art work.
Thank you for explaining this properly, I’ve always been mystified about that particular moment in the film and this was very informative.
I too fell completely in love with the Animatrix and felt that even though short in length or duration, that “Detective Story” was one of the best chapters in the archives. World Record caused the hairs on my forearms to stand straight up from goosebumps while watching it for the first time, understanding how it all ties in with everything else. The story of the Matrix is simply brilliant the entire concept and cleverly written such that it always leaves you tumbling “down the rabbit hole”.
“The truth is out there”..
Alice is from through the looking glass. References to her pepper the first matrix. And that little robot doesn’t poison Neo, its a tracking device.