Waking Life
Directed by Richard Linklater.
With animated images painted over live-action film Waking Life follows an anonymous young man’s encounters with a series of people who discourse on the nature of human existence and its relationship to dream experiences. As he realises that these discussions reflect the world around him it appears that the medium is the message: the dream is inescapable.
Animation buffs may be interested in the visual technique but it is not sufficiently well utilised to be anything more than a gimmick. There are no substantial characters, no plot and no themes worth more than a few minutes of brain-power. The philosophical monologues are not developed systematically enough to be intellectually interesting.
In fact, it’s tiresome soapbox-like rhetoric, saturated in ego, laden with smug and pointless quotes and name-dropping. Any glimmerings of insight are undermined by its ironic self-commentary, as though Linklater wants any sceptics to think that he actually does know what he’s doing and that there really is an ‘inner meaning’. I would put up with it as a 5 minute short lost in the depths of Eat Carpet but as a feature film it’s an hour and a half too long. I give Linklater one tick for trying something different but minus a lot for inflicting this banal pretentiousness on the world.
Guy
