A friend recommended me Waking life. We watched it together on one of those quiet, hot afternoons. A week later, the film is still on my mind. Not so much its swirling reasoning about society, waking life and dreaming life, as its style and atmosphere. Waking life precedes films such as Persepolis and Waltz with Bashir. These are all films that use animation in a personal, imaginative way. Waking life was first filmed in the normal way, then the filmed bits were animated. The result is rather stunning to watch. On the level of ideas, I wasnt as convinced. Often, I found myself wondering whether I should take something as a hint of subtle ironiy, or if the crudeness of the conversations is accidental.Conversations are the backbone of the film. There's not much else going on. People talk, basically, about the meaning of existence, why we live, what it is to be alive to reality. And, in the later part of the film, what it is to find oneself stuck in a series of dream states, unable to wake up. Of course, we are encouraged to understand "dreaming" as something we indulge in not only in sleep but also during most of our waking lives. I do understand that Linklater wanted to challenge the way most films are, and make something different, something more intellectual, at the same time centered on everyday life. It's just that sometimes there is a stiffness and pretentiousness about how these people talk, that make the intellectualness turn into exactly that.
Robert C Solomon, philosopher (whom I am not a big fan of) is said to appear In the film. I didn't recognize him at the time but well, there he is, talking big words about Existentialism.
Still - this is an original film.
No comments:
Post a Comment