The Animatrix – Program

Program was very interesting. The art style this time resembles that of old japanese samurai-anime. If you combine this with the extremely fluent animation and choreography, the result turns out interesting.

We’ve got a woman, inside a mini-matrix. Another guy comes up, and challenges her for a spar. He then makes a confession to her, while he has blocked the signal so nobody can hear him. He plans to go back to the matrix. The woman doesn’t agree. She can’t turn back from the truth. The two make a small chase, after which the woman kills the guy. In the end, it appeared to be a test for her, to see whether she’d react in the right way. The woman isn’t really happy with it.

The interesting point of this film is the emotional effect the matrix can have on a person. The guy appeared to be a simulation, but when you’re in the matrix, or mini-matrix in this case, you won’t notice. A program was created so, that it would look like the guy she knew in every single way. If that’s the case, how ever can you recognize whether that guy is a fake? In normal anime, people often recognize this because they feel something different, or that their heart knows that they’re being deceived. But the fact remains that the matrix can create these feelings.

Program also had a few claustrophobic moments. The program tells the woman that he’s blocked the signal. When she starts screaming for help, nobody reacts because of this. It must be quite a scary feeling, when you always know that you can escape a “dream”-world because of your comrades. I think that that’s a reason for people to be calm in situations like these. It must be a huge shock to find out that you don’t have a means of returning to the real world. Especially if someone’s about to kill you.

Overall, it isn’t the best. It has yet to reach the brilliance of World Record. Still, it was an interesting watch. The fights also were well-coordinated and full of details, though I admit that they lacked a bit in creativity.