Look out! He's got a knife!

Waking Life

Recently saw Waking Life, Richard Linklater's trippy computer-rotoscoped dream movie, which seems to be a sort of prequel to A Scanner Darkly, Linklater's trippy computer-rotoscoped Philip K. Dick movie. There will be spoilers -- in as much as it's possible to spoil this movie.

James Berardinelli's review of Waking Life says this:
When he introduced the film at its Sundance 2001 premiere, Linklater posed one question to the audience, and it goes a long way towards setting the stage for Waking Life. "How many of you out there are on drugs?" he asked. When a number of hands went up, he added, "Good. This is for you. The rest of you, just bear with me."

So I set the stage for myself and dived in. An lo! I did enjoy it very much, and forsooth! there was synchronicity in what it had to say to me -- there's been a lot of synchronicity in the things I've watched and read lately.

Waking Life is basically a dream narrative, as a young fella swims his way through various dreams mostly consisting of people talking in monologues. Some of them are spouting philosophical or scientific concepts, some are venting at the world, and some are just talking. The young fella starts off passive but is eventually prompted towards taking a more active role in his dreams, and in what seems like a nod towards Bunuel's The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie he keeps waking up from one dream into another. At a certain point the movie shifts from relatively light & fluffy to relatively dark & sinister, though it never quite tips over into frightening or disturbing.

To me, the movie was about people wandering around lost inside their own heads, circling around their pre-occupations (whether they be ideals or concepts or revenge fantasies) and never living in the moment. Towards the end when the narrator expresses his confusion and dismay about being unable to leave the dream-state to a dream-character, the character says "Just wake up!" I think it's relevant that this character is played by Linklater himself.

In three words, Linklater conveys all the profundity that was missing from the oodles and poodles of philosophical mutterings in the first half of the movie.

Years ago, a psychedelic experience fuelled by dancing & LSD revealed the secret of life to me: "The only reason we exist is because it feels good to be flesh." I have tried to communicate this to people I thought would understand, but no luck so far. One day though...

Wake up. Just wake up.

Posted by pearce at February 12, 2006 3:34 PM