The Animatrix - Kid's Story
The fourth short in the Animatrix set of stories is Kid's Story, about a teenager and suicide. At first, the boy dreams about falling to his death. He then writes on a board that his dreams seem more real than reality. Someone types back that "there is some fiction in your truth, and some truth in your fiction." He's then told to "risk everything".
The animation style is almost impressionistic, with fuzzy lines and out of focus backgrounds. The kid's phone rings in class while he is scribbling "Neo get me out of here." He turns it off, and his teacher warns him that he's barely passing and to keep it off. Somehow it rings again, and is told to escape. He does on his skateboard with men in black chasing him. The images turn even more impressionistic now.
He gets trapped in a girl's bathroom and looks down out the window - he sees the suicide point of his dream. He climbs up a pipe and gets to a fence on the roof where the agents wait. Then he says "Neo, I believe, I know it wasn't a dream." And he lets go and falls. Black birds take flight above him as he falls.
"Michael Karl Popper - Beloved Son" on the gravestone. The people at the grave say "He's in another world now." Michael "wakes up" and Neo is there, and says "you saved yourself". And the computer types "You are not alone." End of movie.
I found this one REALLY disturbing because it pretty much says very clearly - if you're not being understood, if you feel alone, commit suicide and you will enter the "cool" world of the Matrix even though nobody else believes you. That's probably the last kind of message that troubled teens need to latch on to ...
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