The Matrix @25: Queering the Canon

by Cláudio Alves

Happy Easter! Happy Trans Day of Visibility!! Happy 25th anniversary to The Matrix!!! As luck would have it, these three occasions coincided this year, making for a lovely little cinematic celebration. After all, The Matrix is probably the most famous work by trans filmmakers – the Wachowski sisters – and Neo's journey can be seen as an allegory of gender identity. It was somewhat devised as such by its closeted auteurs who've reclaimed their work's intrinsic queerness after it became a powerful reference for the MRA movement and the alt-right. Like many misappropriated movies, The Matrix doesn't deserve its fans. Or, perhaps more accurately, a good portion of its fandom doesn't deserve The Matrix in all its glory.

But Neo isn't just a queer icon. He's also something of a Jesus figure, a Messiah for our cyber-noir future, bedecked in fetish fashions, armed with kung fu moves and impossible firepower. And like Christ, he is risen…

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Louis Gossett Jr. (1936-2024)

by Cláudio Alves

THE COLOR PURPLE (2023) Blitz Bazawule

Yesterday, in a public statement, the family of Louis Gossett Jr. announced the actor's death. He was 87, and though no cause was revealed, he had been fighting prostate cancer for the past decade. Mourning the loss of such an artist is to celebrate the person and the performer, remembering his work across decades, from stage to screen, big and small. No genre was beneath him, no role beyond his range, be it a lead part or a supporting turn that showed up for just one scene or two. Indeed, earlier this year, Gossett received a SAG ensemble nomination for his work in The Color Purple musical. 

Speaking of awards, this thespian is a history-making figure for Oscar obsessives. After all, he was the first Black man to win the Best Supporting Actor trophy…

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Cláudio's 2023 Top Ten

by Cláudio Alves

Commercial releases aside, Patiño's SAMSARA is 2023 best film.Better late than never, am I right? As we all know, here at The Film Experience, a cinematic year only ends after the Oscars, so maybe I'm not so late after all. Whatever the case, it's time to say goodbye to 2023, with the Miyazaki ranking as my prelude to this farewell. At long last, let's consider newer releases and, most importantly, turn away from the now to ruminate on the before – film history, here we come. Indeed, I've missed writing about older pictures like you wouldn't believe. But let's hold our horses. Before such revelry into the distant past, one has to look back at the year that's gone and all its big screen wonders. Personally, I thought they were a vibrant twelve months of cinema…

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My Miyazaki Ranking: Part Four – The Eternal Mystery

by Cláudio Alves

Exploring Hayao Miyazaki's filmography is to dive into a cinema that's often as moving as it is mysterious. Connections to the land abound, calling for ecological harmony in a place ravaged by modernity. Tradition dances with progress, teetering on the edge of oblivion, while dreams soar high above the clouds, for flight is the highest form of freedom. Even his most straightforward exercises tend to have an oneiric touch, some connection to the unknown within us and the world we inhabit. Because he taps into such (un)realities, Miyazaki's narrative work can move between genres and expectations, often complicating conflicts beyond the usual archetypes or doing away with them altogether. And through it all, animation allows the impossible to become possible, the screen a window to imagination unbound…

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My Miyazaki Ranking: Part Three – Self-Portraits

by Cláudio Alves

One way or another, artists can't help but put some part of themselves into their work. It might not be obvious or a direct expression of character. It might not even be conscious on their part. However, it's there for those willing to see, from works by the most self-effacing hacks to world-renowned auteurs. Hayao Miyazaki is no different, though he's sometimes prone to underselling just how personal some of his pictures can be. Of course, there's no denying the introspection happening in his most recent "last films," and not even the director has tried to distance The Wind Rises or The Boy and the Heron from such interpretations. But there's more self-portraiture in his filmography than just those late-career triumphs. I'd say there's a lot of Miyazaki in a little witch who loved to fly…

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