I fell asleep during The Matrix. Its themes seemed to me, at the time of its release, more or less just trite ideas that I had already read about in various intro philosophy texts and whatnot, and the areas it touched on were never my areas of interest in philosophy anyway. It muddled its religious undertones, and the ethical questions were given short shrift. Fifteen years later, I watched a movie nearly twice as long, which eschews action in favor of psychological intensity, and tackles many--but not all--of the same questions.

It was much better this time around.

The first and best difference is aesthetic. Fassbinder has created a science fiction world that looks schlubby. It's populated by suits and…

I’d never heard of World on a Wire before Criterion’s announcement of its re-mastering and subsequent theatrical re-release in 2010. The trailer they’d put together hooked me immediately, based mostly on the retro-future set design and the promise of a strange, hard sci-fi thriller full of intrigue and mystery. The picture did not disappoint. With the recent blu ray release, I was thankful to be able to sit down with this epic film once again and try and make sense of any details I’d missed the first time around.

In the not-too-distant future, a supercomputer called ‘Simulacron’ provides scientists with the ability to simulate and study a virtual society comprised of 10,000 ‘identity units’. When the technical director of the…

Reflections, distortions, refractions, obstructions... Reality is seldom clear-cut, and World on a Wire takes that notion to the extreme. One of the most impressive made-for-TV movies I have ever seen, Fassbinder takes us on a twisted tour of technology, our minds, and reality. Heavy on psychology, philosophy, and gleefully 70s-style zoom-ins, Fassbinder's flair for visually arresting cinematography take this sci-fi tale from dated to exemplary.

The use of mirrors, while seeming almost heavy-handed at times (nearly every other shot seems to have a reflection of one of the speaking actors), hammers home the underlying theme of paranoia - both of the invisible limits of our own perception and our minds' attempts to enlarge our world beyond those limits. In browsing…

Fassbinder gets the jump on decades of philosophical sci-fi with this miniseries. His penchant for reflective surfaces and obscuring glass is taken to an early extreme here, with countless shots incorporating reflections into blocking or framing characters through glass that often warps dimensions and even at its least intrusive makes it clear that everyone is being watched. (The adjective "cinematic" is used freely and almost always emptily in current discussions of TV, but Fassbinder, like the other European auteurs who experimented on the small-screen, comes closest to cinema by expressly foregrounding the format of their television productions with an aesthetic that shows them adapting to its different demands and even the implications of its alternate screen.)

There's way too much…

I don't think Rainer Werner Fassbinder was meant for science fiction. The man was a cinematic genius, releasing masterpieces like Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974). But his made-for-TV movie World on a Wire, based on the novel Simulacron-3 by Daniel F. Galouye, seems hollow and empty. Of course, you could easily argue that the sets, props, locations, and characters are supposed to seem lifeless and robotic. After all, the film centers around a scientist named Dr. Fred Stiller who discovers that he and everybody else that exists are merely computer programs in a Matrix-like simulation. Early scenes before Stiller's revelation are particularly beautiful and striking. In one scene that takes place at a party at a bar/pool/lounge, the people…

I enjoyed this, but not nearly as much as other Fassbinder films I've watched. To start, I'm not usually that big of a fan of most Hollywood films that deal in metaphysics either. The Matrix, Inception, etc. are too filled with holes to make much sense, and ones I've liked more such as Blade Runner or The Truman Show weren't so dependent on gimmicks. Even the lesser ones are fun to watch, but they fall apart under much scrutiny. I did enjoy the second half a bit more, but while I'm sure I'll give it another viewing later, my first impression was along the lines of "OK, so what." Yes, this one came first, so I'll acknowledge the inventiveness, the…