9 The movie!

I saw the Movie 9 over the weekend. Spectacular on visuals, deft in craft, interesting in philosophy, is how I would sum it up. Spoliers ahead.

The movie starts with the destruction of mankind, by a machine that was created to actually grade it to perfection. The premise being that the machine has no soul, and that is its tragic flaw. The understated claim is that the machine is aware of this flaw, and is eager to find a way to complete itself by finding a soul. This very greed, could potentially destroy it however since the creator embeds a sequence within the instrument to destroy the machine.

The creator of the machine understands this, and in a bid to reconstruct life on earth, divides his own soul into 9 dolls (or wharever). Fragments of his own human nature that function independent of memory that co-ordinates them. What if the different traits of human played themselves out in total purity of their nature in the world oustide instead of mixing the context and playing themselves inside a single human being?

The creator dies after his creation, and lets the purpose unfold to the characters as it would seem like chance. The machine is asleep after destroying the human kind because it has nothing else to do. However, it is wakes up again, when the last piece of the creators creation is fit into it, that gives it the possibility of having a human soul. And then goes on to collect the 9 different fragments of this sould with this device.

The interesting subtext is that the characters are not aware of the reason why they are created. Events that lead to apparent mistakes and temporary pain actually make sense in the big picture suggesting that there is a method to the chaos and events that unravel around us. Note that when 9 awakens the machine, which goes on to kill other numbers, he is chastitised for defying conventions and grappling with things that have brought about doom on the last survivors of mankind.

The idea is to say, that within us there is a purpose unravelling that is not apparent to the devices we are equipped with while we enter the world. That life that we see may not be what we see or want it to be, but life will serve its own path and its own purpose. But within us lies the potential to reconstruct man, from the scratch, that can help us touch the perfection that we are capable of using this life.

Now to the 9 traits themeselves. First is Fear, its nature is to hanker for security, by keeping every other attribute in its control by proclaiming itself a leader. For having first saved them by teaching them the value of security. Its closest aid is strength and pleasure, that works under its cue to keep others in check by brute force.

Then there is compassion, its apt that at the start of the movie, fear sends intelligence out to die, because intelligence asks uncomfortable questions about the nature of fear. Fear rationalizes its action by telling the principle by which it works, that one must be sacrificed for collective good. Its also apt that at the end of the movie, fear finally recognizes its own principle, and sacrifices itself for the others - to suggest, that sacrifice should be voluntary not enforced - if at all. This after the sub-text that fear knows more than it actually shows, it recognizes what the true potential and purpose is - but holds on to a narrow vision of security - so you see the eyes narrowing down when it looks at the world, and this vision changes towards the end of the movie.

It is also apt that intellect (2 I suppose), rescues reason (number 9) in the opening scenes and gives it a "Voice" and triggers the entire proceedings of the movie, because intellect along with compassion go to rescue intellect by defying the rules of fear and brute force.

9 is born in the opening sequences of the movie, thrust into a destroyed world, confused, in the wilderness, rescued by intellect - that gives it a voice, while it is taken captive by the machine (nature with its laws minus the faculities of human). While 9 wants to go back and rescue it, he is confronted by the rigid 1. Eventually, 9 and compassion go out to rescue number 2. Across the adventures they meet feminine "Ability/skill". Ability refuses to live under fear because it finds it crippling.

9 ends up waking up the monster by fitting the piece into it that makes it alive to the possibility of having a soul. They meet the twins - who catalog - or the memory, one part that works on images, the other on words - they work together holding the information of the past.

The Machine sucks up the first piece of its soul by taking in the intellect. And then proceeds to find the other fragments. Each of these fragments want to survive, and hence try to destory the machine, giving up on the fragments that it has already consumed. This would actually be against their purpose, because the machine cannot be destroyed without having woken it up. Only "Creativity/intution/right brain", who understands the purpose, but has no words to express it, but only symbols to show it knows that the fragments are not lost and that the machine should not be destroyed while the fragments are locked inside. It instructs 9 to go back to the source to understand the purpose of their life and then "act" accordingly.

Meanwhile, memory, fear and ability are trying to destory the machine. While reason goes back to the source and finds out the purpose for their creation. Eventually, fear sacrifices itself to help Reason achieve the purpose. The numbers that have been sucked into the machine are freed, and they recycle back into nature as microbes. While, the twins, 9 and the ability inherit the earth.

The movie ends when the feminine doll asks 9 "what next?" - and 9 responds "whatever we can make out of what we have" - or ability and reason with the twin memories that like adam and even can lay the foundations of the new man - and re-build by recycling.

The obvious problems in grappling with and making statements of philosophy makes it convenient to use a story line to demonstrate it, and leave the field open for interpretation. No problems with that, all in all, there is more to this movie than you see. I am not convinced with the philosophy and I have lot of objections, but that does not stop me from enjoying the beauty of it all. I like it for its integrity in story telling and a visual representation of highly artistic minds.