Waking Life Review
Both a homecoming of sorts and a quantum leap forward, Richard_Linklater's Waking Life can be taken as a companion piece to his groundbreaking debut feature, Slacker. Centering on the dreamscape rambles of an unnamed protagonist (played by Wiley_Wiggins, who also served as one of the film's animators), the movie takes on Slacker's free-form approach, ricocheting from one conversation to the next with just a hint of a narrative. But while Slacker looked very much like the shoestring-budget indie movie that it was, Waking Life is an altogether different experience. Using new animation technology designed by Bob_Sabiston, the movie's art director, Waking Life is one of the most visually innovative American films ever made. Linklater used a method that involved filming his actors in digital video; the frames were then painted over by a crew of artists. The resulting look is vibrant and ethereal, like a dreamy moving painting. The talk is dizzyingly flighty as well -- brimming with youthful inquisitiveness, Waking Life is a movie drunk on talk and ideas. Essentially a compendium of Philosophy 101 lectures, the movie's text is all over the place; discussion topics include existentialism, evolution, and film theorist Andre_Bazin. Nonetheless, an obsession with dreams and their power to sustain emerges. With its ever-shifting planes and impressionistic figures, the animation is a fitting visual counterpart to Linklater's intellectual meanderings. While the movie falls short of profundity -- the various philosophical musings never quite rise above the level of entertaining mental masturbation -- its exuberance and inventiveness can't be denied. Elbert Ventura, Rovi
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