BOUND: MORE THAN JUST A REHEARSAL FOR THE MATRIX?

The Wachowskis’ first film is perhaps the most forgotten in their filmography, is it deserving of more?

Jennifer Tilly and Gina Gershon as Violet and Corky in Bound.

Called by The Matrix producer, Joel Silver, as an “audition” for its predecessor, The Wachowskis’ 1996 debut film Bound is the most overlooked movie in the filmmakers’ vast catalog. Despite receiving positive reviews and earning back its budget, the film has never been able to truly escape the overshadowing success of The Matrix.

Freelance writer and critic, James Douglas identifies that it doesn’t have the scope and epicness of their future work which they would come to be known by.

“The Matrix felt like it came out of nowhere for a lot of people so it makes sense that people would look back at Bound as a bit of an odd one out in the Wachowskis’ filmography because they went on to make these big, large blockbuster fantasy, mega budget works,” said Douglas.

Producer of The Matrix Joel Silver says that the Wachowskis went to ‘Warner Brothers’ with the idea for The Matrix, and were told that they would need to prove themselves before they could be trusted with such a big budget film.

In the book The Wachowski Brothers: Creators of The Matrix by writer Christy Marx, Silver says, “Bound is an audition movie to prove to everyone else, and to themselves, that they (The Wachowskis) knew what they were doing on a movie set.”

But to Douglas and to many others Bound doesn’t feel like a film that was a rehearsal for a bigger project. It is a film that stands on its own, and is actually some of the best work the Wachowskis have done to date.

“It didn’t feel like a practice work or a work of filmmakers who were working up to something that was more interesting to them,” said Douglas. “It just felt like a very well made, self contained story that sort of showed another side of the Wachowskis.”

Douglas compared it to other established directors' debut films such as Paul Thomas Anderson’s Hard Eight and the Coen Brothers’ Blood Simple in the way that they are all good neo-noir crime films that stand on their own despite what the directors went on to do.

“When I look at Bound I see a lot of similarities with other small scale, early, what people sometimes call calling card, films from art directors. Like the Coen brothers’ film Blood Simple which is similar to Bound,” said Douglas.

“Very small scale, tightly written, neo-noir thriller. And these films stand on their own terms as being really great, they don’t just feel like the filmmakers are twiddling their thumbs waiting for their next film.”

Bound has been gaining more traction recently with critics and fans finding it for the first time, or re-evaluating it in 2022. Appreciation has been coming in with many articles praising the sensational depiction of the queer relationship between the two main characters. It seems to be finally getting the credit that it deserves.

The Wachowskis sensational debut film Bound is available to stream on Stan and my review of the film can be found here.