 "Review: Waking Life (2001)" | 2009-10-04 |
| - Reviewed By User: A1XPL7K30Z8VXD |
Director: Richard Linklater
Writer: Richard Linklater
Starring: Wiley Wiggins, Bill Wise, Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy, Alex Jones, Richard Linklater, John Christensen
"What the hell is this guy talking about?" I thought that exact phrase about 15 times throughout this movie. Combine very abstract visual animations of live action video with very existential and philosophical monologues and dialogues and you have Waking Life. You will probably need to see it at least twice to fully absorb everything.
There is a very loose story. Willy Wiggins is getting lectures from or talking with various people about the nature of reality and the meaning of life, and the whole thing is animated. There isn't really a beginning, middle, or end, just a series of conversations or monologues. At times it feels like a really weird, artsy documentary.
Even though some of the scenes are ostensibly conversations, the characters don't talk normally, the way you or I would. The all feel very scripted, and to me the bizarre animations are covering up what is probably some very bad acting, or at least unconvincingly delivered lines of philosophical dialogue.
If you like artsy movies or want your mind blown off the chart, then this movie is probably for you. After a few scenes of re-defining the nature of reality, I found myself desensitized to what the characters were trying to say. You aren't really given time to digest the significance of each character's point of view before you're thrust with another, and I didn't feel that the artsy animation style really added anything to what the characters said. More often than not I found it unnecessary or even distracting.
Final Score: 6/10 |
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 "'toons and philosophical enquiries meld surprisingly well" | 2009-09-25 |
| - Reviewed By User: A18SDN3HYFVH2L |
Where to start with this one? First of all, it's visually impressive (though not absolutely mind-blowing as some have said...if you've seen a lot of animation, you've probably seen plenty of stuff this inventive), making some of the best use of rotoscoping (animated tracing over live-action figures, with animated backgrounds) that I've seen in a feature; it's got a fairly ambitious intellectual conceit (a man who may or may not be on the verge of death throughout the film dreams in a lucid way about what the nature of reality, consciousness, free will, etc really are); it's got great music (by Glover Gill)...what more could you want? Well, for starters, it works out to be not much more than philosophical ramblings, and I think to some extent it wears out its welcome. Now, if you knew me you'd know I often like long movies...I have no problem with a lot of work that a lot of people call "slow"; but this was to me too much of the same thing. And some of the observations are facile in a druggy-stoner way that just made me think, who cares? Like pothead versions of Seinfeld and company, frankly.
Still, adding it up, I'm thinking about it quite a lot since I first watched the excellent, feature-packed DVD a couple of years ago. Another aspect I really liked was the self-referentiality: the film as a whole is very reminiscent of the director's first feature, SLACKER; it contains a short scene with Jesse and Celine, the characters from the previous BEFORE SUNRISE that also obviously looks forward to the sequel to that film, BEFORE SUNSET; the technique used and some of the more fantastic imagery seems now a tryout for the director's later rotoscoped Philip K Dick adaptation, A SCANNER DARKLY; and both Linklater and his good friend (and fellow experimental-at-times filmmaker) Steven Soderbergh make appearances. And there's a scene or two late in the film that is reminiscent of the work of another extremely self-referential artist, the experimental American SF writer Samuel R. Delany (specificially, his 1000-page, Joycean "Dhalgren").
I need to see it again; reading some pretty intelligent reviews this afternoon leads me to believe that a deeper reading would be more rewarding. Despite many reservations, I'm giving it high marks simply for attempting subject matter and film techniques that nobody else in America seems interested in. Linklater has proved himself a great disciple of European art cinema, not just the usual Scorsese-Coppola-DePalma stuff, and that's all to the good. |
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 "Fantastic Movie" | 2009-09-23 |
| - Reviewed By tonytognucci |
This is one of the greatest movies I have ever seen. Heavily layered with meaning, the protagonist goes from person to person listening to everything from expositions on Existentialsim to Lucid Dream Work. If you can keep your opions out of it until the end and merely WITNESS - merely watch and listen, I promise you will find gold and your inner voice will definitely speak to you.
Highly, highly, recommended. |
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| "Oneironauts, or life is but a waking dream..." | 2009-09-15 |
| - Reviewed By oakshaman |
It must be a mark of how far out of the loop I am these days that I didn't hear about this film until now. On the other hand, like the main character, it seemed in a strange way to echo my own speculations on so many things. Perhaps that isn't so strange, for as one of the dream conversations points out, we are all interconnected at some level- that is why new ideas seem to pop up in many places at the same time and are soon mastered by the many. That is no doubt why this film popped up. I kept saying to myself I've been here before, I've been here before...
So many ideas are covered here from the nature of dreams, the nature of modern life, the nature of death, the nature of existence. The metaphysical ideas of PKD are even touched upon. Projects this intelligent usually do not get made since so few will really get it. But then, perhaps that it was made heralds a universal shift in consciousness.
Some people will automatically reject this film as a sophomoric bull session. Those are the people with no curiosity about the underlying nature of reality. If you live in the sort of community where conversations never seem to get beyond knee jerk politics, weather, and football, then this film will come as a godsend. |
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| "My Favorite Movie!" | 2009-09-04 |
| - Reviewed By User: A3SHA4ML320UPQ |
The Waking Life is my Favorite movie of all time. I can't count how many times I've watched it.
If you like weird philosophical movies, this is it.
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| "List of Topics Covered in this Series of Dreams" | 2009-06-16 |
| - Reviewed By moscocious |
Existentialism: A college professor claims that far from being a philosophy of despair (Sartre claims never to have felt despair), existentialism is a philosphy of "exuberance," hope, and possibility.
The professor considers but refutes postmodern claims that we are socially constructed, and re-emphasizes existential claims that we are our own authors.
Language: A college aged blonde woman discusses language theory. She contemplates how much of our experience is abstract and ineffable, but also stresses how we live for the moments when true communication takes place and we feel understood. This she compares to spiritual communion.
Evolutionary Psychology: An ev. psychologist considers the telescoping (accelerated) nature of human evolution. He argues that evolution is accelerating at such a rate that soon we will be able to detect evolutionary alterations even in our own lifetimes. So far evolution has been governed by the survival of species, but, he argues, we are about to enter a new phase of evolution whereby individuals will evolve according to inner desires...
Alienation: An alienated rebel suggests that humans not only desire chaos (including catastrophes) but that they need it. But he also argues that the media intentionally makes us feel small and powerless. As a means of protest, he sets himself ablze.
Collective Memory/Consciousness: Ethan Hawke & Julie Delpy discuss the possibility that we are all able to access not just our own individual memories but also the memories of the human species. Delpy says she often feels like she is an old woman looking back on her life, and Hawke suggests that we are all somehow connected to the same consciousness (and that this explains why humans on all points of the globe often stumble upon the same ideas at the same time).
Free Will: A scientist discusses the history of the determinism v. free will argument. Governed by his own field of expertise he attempts to explain everything according to unbending physical laws, yet, despite his training and deliberations, he is unwilling to give up the idea of free will...
Systems of Control: A man with speakers on the roof of his car drives through the city streets warning the public that we are all members of a "corporate slave state," and he urges us not to surrender to the mass dehumanization that he sees being perpetrated by corporations and politicians (which he sees as corporate puppets). He argues that they all want to make us feel small so that we won't resist, but that we must resist in order to assert our creative humanity.
Attitude: An older professor argues that we must struggle to liberate ourselves from the negative: "Say yes to one instant, and you say yes to life."
Limnal Experiences: Meaning "inbetween" states or experiences that challenge existing accounts/defintions of experience, identity, reality. An ethnic writer argues that these limnal experiences that challenge the norm are in fact becoming the norm. And, he goes on to argue that we are all becoming part of a greater subjectivity (or radical subjectivity) that recognizes no set boundaries.
Time/Identity: A middle-aged pair of friends discuss their lives and how they felt that the uncertainty of youth would one day vanish into the certainty of age. But neither has found that to be the case. Both feel that curiosity makes humans undergo constant changes and that this process lasts ones entire lifetime.
Doubt/Narrative: A monkey shows and narrates a film about how "doubt" has become the new generation's narrative and how various cultural rebels search for and find the "buried possibilities of our time." The new world, claims the simian, is a negation of the old. And, he adds, "a new world is just as likely as an old one."
Self-Imposed Barriers: A guy at a bar compares man to animals, and suggests that the reason more humans do not achieve great things is because of fear and laziness.
Dream Consciousness: A woman on television discusses how we can apprehend things while dreaming that we could never apprehend while awake.
Film: A film enthusiast discusses Bazin's view that film allows us to see that each moment is a "holy moment." The friend of the film enthusiast discusses that reality is always layered and that even when we try to have a holy moment we are always aware of ourselves as humans trying to have a holy moment.
Theory/Action: A group of four young would-be radicals discuss ways to liberate the world from its current predicament when they encounter an older man sitting atop a telephone pole. One of the yong radicals asks the older gentleman why he is sitting up there and the old man replies he doesn't know. The young radical thinks for a moment and says to his friends, "he is all action and no theory, and we are all theory and no action."
Ants: A theatre student insists that we must not go through life like ants--going through the motions without thinking--, but that we must confront one another and experience one another and ourselves.
A Consistent Perspective: The protaganist who has been witness to all of these monologues and conversations, decides that what he has is a "consistent perspective." Meaning that while he considers each persons point of view, and that he benefits from the knowledge/wisdom/fantasies imparted to him, his own perspective sets him apart.
Alienation/Exuberance: A wild haired man on a bridge discusses "how exciting alienation can be."
Connection: A middle-aged woman looks at her past and concludes that the most important thing about life is "connecting with people."
Last words: While playing pinball, the director discusses a Philip K. Dick story as well of one of his own dreams that involves Lady Gregory and his dead dog, but ultimately decides that all of life can really be reduced to just one question, "do you want to be one with eternity?" And that most of us answer, "no, not just yet."
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