The other night, I watched with my fiancee an (nowadays) old classic movie, The Truman Show, released in 1998 and starring Jim Carrey at perhaps the peak time of his career in cinema. For those of you who have never seen or heard of it, it centres around a man, Truman Burbank, whose entire life has been recorded on live TV since before the moment of his birth. He lives in the artificially created town of Seahaven, which in reality is situated within a giant dome situated in Los Angeles.

Even though this analysis may be twenty years too late, I’m going to write it anyway! A quick plot summary is forthcoming, so spoilers ahead for those who don’t want anything ruined.

The plot basically follows Truman’s gradual realisation that his entire world is an illusion. As the movie progresses, he finds more and more strange happenings around him, which triggers him to start questioning his life, the people around him and even reality itself. This gradually sends Truman on a spiral that leads him to the threshold of madness, but eventually, he discovers the truth of things – that he is the star of the world’s most popular television show. In the end, he is given the choice by the creator of the show, a man named Christof, to continue his life in a state of comfort and security, or face the great unknown of a life unrestricted by the limitations of living on a giant TV production stage.

The film makes you question your own reality to an extent. While lying on the couch, both my partner and I exchanged looks and asked one another whether we were actors in each other’s TV shows – only for both of us to state that we wouldn’t say so even if we were. You know, in order to maintain the authenticity of the show. The movie poses the common philosophical question, “is our reality actually real?”, getting us to ask ourselves if we are the centre of an elaborate television program – or some form of artificial reality. Not too dissimilar in concept to its contemporary The Matrix. Both of the movies are modern takes on that rather old premises posed by Plato with his Allegory of the Cave, Descartes’ Evil Demon and more recently Hilary Putnam’s brain in a vat. All get us to question the nature of our reality and whether we can truly believe what we see.

Thinking about this whilst watching the film led me to go a little further and interpret it on a more spiritual level, an understanding of the movie that somewhat correlates with the journeys of mystics and other followers on the pathways to the divine. Now, before I divulge any further, I should say the movie definitely isn’t an exact allegory of an archetypical seeker, I just saw some similarities here and there throughout. Moreover, I haven’t really checked the internet for similar understandings, so I hope I’m not unintentionally copying someone else!

Why I think the movie reflects the spiritual journey in some ways, is because I found it similar to not only parts of my own story but also quite like the ones I’ve read and heard about. The film begins with a man just living a normal life, fitting in perfectly, without much of a care in the world. He is happy pursuing the things that are socially normal to pursue, enjoying the pleasures we normally enjoy, like getting a stable job, having a house, a car, nice things, having kids and the like. But then, several events trigger a radical change in the way he sees the world. Something seems odd, not in line with how “normal” reality is meant to be. They’re blatantly obvious in The Truman Show, but they can be a bit more subtle and difficult to perceive in the real world. From my own experience, it was a little less dramatic, instead, I read books that led me to question the world around me. Many social norms that were generally seen as the correct way to do things suddenly appeared so unreal to me, even ridiculous. A couple of examples come to mind: simple things that go unquestioned like putting a knife and fork together when you’ve finished a meal, to big things like the value of money. Generally, many on a spiritual path question the reality of entirely social constructs, many of which only have meaning insofar as people give it.

Truman, having done this, begins to be treated strangely by those around him, like his friends and family (even though they are aware of the truth). He does socially unconventional things and goes a little bit wild as the falseness of the world becomes more apparent and he increasingly questions what reality is. He becomes more focused on pursuing his passion in life – travelling and exploring – despite the scepticism and ridicule of those around him. Similarly, one on the spiritual path may begin to do things that are considered odd by the general public. They do things a little out of the ordinary, care less about pursuing conventional goals in life, do more risky things. More time is devoted to cultivating oneself and pursuing one’s passions, rather than developing a public image and gaining material wealth. The ecstatic mannerisms of Sufis like Rumi is reminiscent of some of this.

But Truman’s journey isn’t without trials and suffering, and this is shown towards the end of the movie where he sets off on a small sailing boat and braves stormy seas (manufactured by the television producers to stop him) in order to reach the truth of all things. He comes close to death, but is finally liberated as he reaches the edge of the dome and the thunderstorm ends. This reminded me of the dark night of the soul, the spiritual crisis many have reported, particularly within Christianity, on their journey towards union with God. The psychological, emotional, and sometimes physical turmoil one can go through before they come face to face with ultimate reality. In Vedantist thought, the stormy seas could represent the last efforts of the individual self before it is dissolved into the supreme unlimited Self – the atman coming to the realisation that it is one with brahman. Questioning everything that led you on this journey, if your choices were wrong, a waste of time. Does God even exist? The great despair of the heart and mind. The stormy seas reflects the last ditch efforts of the self obsessed mind or whatever force that prevents the seeker from uniting with the divine. But the night is always darkest before the dawn.

In the final scene of the movie, Truman and Kristof are in conversation, where he exposes the truth to Truman at long last. Kristof isn’t really God in the movie, even though he is the creator of the show. He is too much of a hindrance for Truman seeing the reality of things. Rather, Kristof is the humanised symbol of the illusion that prevents us from seeing the divine. He is the symbol of maya, that which veils ultimate reality. He represents our normal everyday senses and our limited mind that prevents us from unveiling the true nature of things, keeping us locked into everyday normality and everyday perception. In these last moments, Kristof represents the choice our mind makes along the journey – we can ultimately go back to the way things are, abandon our journey. Maybe we’ve learnt some things along the way, but really we prefer to just choose the easy, safe and comfortable path. Or we choose the great unknown, embrace whatever is to come and merge with reality as it truly is, just as Truman does.

So to finish things up, please let me know what you think of this interpretation of the movie. Or tell me what you think of the film and how you understood it. There are many more interpretations to be made – it has lots of layers and angles to approach it from – which to me is what makes a great piece of cinema, or for that matter, any piece of art.

Images taken from:

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/10/truman-show-tv-series_n_5124946.html

https://partiallyexaminedlife.com/2015/05/12/plato-and-the-god-of-the-gaps

https://www.psychedelicadventure.net/2015/06/dark-night-of-soul.html