Reality: is it something simply perceived by one or more perceivers, or is there something more to it, something objective? Oftentimes, problems with perception itself can bring reality into question. Whether through an instance of déjà vu or the time lost from a long nap, these subtle and not so subtle moments of disorientation can call the fundamental nature of reality into question for a perceiver. Even the routine process of dreaming can affect how one views the world, forcing one to ask that seemingly unanswerable question: “What is real?” No filmmakers have explored the meaning and make up of reality and false realities with such intensity and philosophical inquiry as The Wachowski’s The Matrix. In it, programmer and hacker, Thomas Anderson a.k.a. Neo, played by Keanu Reeves, discovers his reality is an intricate simulation created by intelligent machines, which have been waging war against mankind for decades, and that he must fulfill the prophecy of the One, who will bring about the end of the war and save humanity. Throughout Neo’s three film journey to become a neo-noir, cyberpunk savior, he and others face several philosophical questions pertaining to the nature of reality and the simulated reality of the Matrix. Like Zhuang Zhou, these characters must ask the same fundamental questions about what is real and why or why not reality matters in order to forge their paths. Neo, under the guidance of Morpheus, who sees the Matrix as a prison, ultimately believes that the world outside the Matrix is the one worth fighting for, yet Cypher, another character under Morpheus’ supervision, eventually abandons this logic and seeks to be reinstated into the Matrix.

Famed philosophers such as Soren Kierkegaard, Albert Camus, and Jean-Paul Sartre have contemplated the subject of existence and written about it often; however, philosophers have not been the only ones to do so. Writers such as William Shakespeare and Mark Twain have also explored the meanings behind life and death. Then, in the 20th Century, when filmmaking became a popular means of storytelling, writers and directors, such as Akira Kurosawa, Alfred Hitchcock, Ridley Scott, and Sam Mendes, began to explore the topic as well. Each of their films provides a unique take on the meaning of life or what it means to be, especially in the face of mortality; however, Akira Kurosawa’s 1952 film, Ikiru – about a terminally ill bureaucrat’s search for meaning – reigns as one of the most beautifully crafted and emotive films to explore and potentially answer the question of what a meaningful life should look like. The journey Kurosawa’s character, Kanji Watanabe, takes in Ikiru mirrors a majority of what philosopher, Soren Kierkegaard, wrote and argued about human existence and its meaning. However, after Watanabe moves through the initial stages of Kierkegaard’s three spheres of existential anxiety, he eventually discovers his own answer for how to live – parallel to Jean Paul Sartre’s argument for making and living by free choice.