eXistenZ

Tonight I watched the movie eXistenZ (1999). I had seen it before, but this time I was struck by the obvious psychedelic and sexual metaphor: a group of people (all men) enter a shared altered state of consciousness under the leadership of a female game designer (in fact, a shaman), and they do so by means of a "technology" that is actually organic: the gamepod is entered into their own body, and this allows them to enter other realities. Two memorable quotes:

"You have to play the game to find out why you're playing the game" (Allegra)

and

" [Ted:] We're just stumbling around together in this unformed world whose rules and objectives are largely unknown, seemingly undecipherable or even possibly non-existent, always on the verge of being killed by forces that we don't understand ...
[Allegra:] That sounds like my game alright
[Ted:] Except it's a game that's not gonna be easy to market
[Allegra:] But it's a game everybody is already playing"

So the movie is really about the nature of reality, and suggests that there is no "baseline world" from which we depart to other realities and to which we return: all realities are games within games within games. Which of course brings up the question: who is playing? And where is s/he?