In ‘Cube’, cult Canadian film from 1997, director Vincenzo Natali brings us into a different dimension, full of symbols and hidden meanings. ‘Cube’, just like ‘The Matrix’ before it, shows an alternative reality and compare our world to computer games and virtual reality.

Six strangers wake up one day in a surrealist jail – a labyrinth of connected cubes full of deadly traps with no way out, as it seems. Professional thief who ran away from every jail, black policeman, a schoolgirl gifted in mathematics, an internist doctor, a young architect and an autistic boy – quite an accidental group of people. None of them knows how or why they were trapped but soon they realize that they all have some useful skills that can help them to get out.

One thing is sure – they will survive only if they cooperate. So they start a dangerous journey through the rooms of the labyrinth. But is that journey surely their only hope? Maybe they should just wait until somebody comes and saves them from this absurd situation? Especially that there are deadly traps all around. Maybe they should just stay in the current cube where they are safe. But they know that without food or drinks they can’t last long. 

In the film number 6, traditionally connected with Satan, plays a very important role. But who created this diabolic labyrinth and why? Each soul locked in it has to learn the laws that govern it, just like a newborn child. They are not the first and surely not the last, as we can see in the opening scene where we probably watch the death of the last member of the former group. 

Are they all part of an absurd experiment, as if to see if they can cooperate to go outside? But what is outside? Evil and cruel but familiar world. Is somebody watching them or just built the labyrinth and left, just like God according to the theory of deism? One thing is certain – the cube follows strict rules and never breaks them. Its horrifying logic is possible to crack. ‘Do not look for a reason, look for a way out’. 

In such extreme conditions love blossoms but is quickly destroyed. In ‘The Matrix’ Love conquers Evil but here only Good can do that. Only a pure person can leave the Cube. Maybe our protagonists died, ‘woke up’ in the Cube and that’s why they do not remember how they got there? They will never find out why they were tested so terribly. They ask themselves the eternal questions: ‘Why me? Why am I here? Who am I?’. The Cube helps them to answer these questions but for a very high price.  Was it worth it?

We can just safely watch their struggle on the screen. But this film encourages us to take a journey through our inner labyrinth. So it symbolizes not only the world but also ourselves. It is both the micro and the macro cosmos.