an absorb exploration of virtual reality and although it be not yet clear how much the director himself intend . this film deliberately take you through several layer of artificial reality and leave only subtle clue about which layer of virtual reality you be in and posit an ontological confusion for the viewer to ponder . also can be see a a satire of video game the whole movie though may fall into the fallacy of imitative form here . it seem unable to escape from the video game genre which it imitate while thus the satire become problematic . a number of interest idea crisscross throughout though represent the biological mutant be one while the interface of technology and biology and the cyborg urge to transcend reality and philosophical allusion such a the title to heidegger and along with existential question represent i. e. and the game character be partly script or determine and yet partly free to alter their fate and and they wonder at how strange that feel in the game . one character then note that this existential confusion be just like real life and thereby erase again the distinction between the virtual and the real . likewise with the observation that it be unpleasant to stumble around in a world where you do not know what will happen next and youre not sure how to play since you have to stumble around just to find out the goal and the unknown rule . a virtual game within the game be title transcendenz . also a critique of how virtual violence make u unable to feel the effect of real violence . even the hero at every level of ontological existence find themselves confused about violence . they do not like it but it be thrill and part of the game and which then they fear be real . the game creator and the god of the system and be assassinate in the end while yet that very scenario be play out in direct parallel to a video game we have just witness and the onlooker believe that it be still just part of the virtual reality . in the end and the film do not resolve the doubt about whether or not this be real but the point be clear ( to me anyway ) . existenz mean da sein represent you be there . you be throw into a set of rule and mystery at every level . ontologically and virtual reality recapitulate reality . and it common game motif express and like a royal road to the unconscious and our own fascination with violence . nevertheless and while cronenberg affirms these philosophical allusion in an interview about the film and he claim that he be very much against the reality . { underground name of terrorist group } portray in the film both in the game and in the real level . seem that cronenberg himself do not put that much think into the film and though his impressive education come through . the interview in cineaste give the impression of a middle brow intellectual who try to be avant garde by inclination . cronenberg be simply on the side of free imagination the clichéd bourgeois modernist credo despite the acknowledged ambivalence there . ( my impression here might be due to one limited interview . ) still and cronenburg seem to miss the point that his film betray the fallacy of imitative form ( here imitate computer game while do a satirical critique of them and but a critique that be unable to transcend the same form ) probably because he actually think that it be imaginative and radical . yet the film imaginative world be less bearable and and more jejune and than our own all too real world . it remain trap in the computer game worldview .