rating:
(out of
4 stars)United States; 2001
Directed by Richard Linklater; produced by Tommy Pallotta, Jonah Smith, Anne Walker-McBay, Palmer West; written by Richard Linklater
Starring Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy, Nicky Katt, Adam Goldberg, Steven Soderbergh, Richard Linklater
Below you will find a temporary review for this film. The real (better, more complete) review will be online very soon.
'Waking Life' is basically about a guy in a dream, talking to other people
about dreams, film, reality, life and death. The people he talks to have
interesting things to say. They are not sure about what they are saying,
although some of them act like that, and that is a great thing about this
movie. After it you are able to join the discussions and give your own
meaning.
I admired the dialogue, the ideas this movie gives us, but I admired the
technical achievement even better. The movie was shot on video cameras, then
rotoscope-animated. What we see is a very real animated movie, but the
animations give the possibility to make it a dreamy world as well.
Everything always seem in motion.
The funny thing is you can also add animated things. When someone is talking
about a telescope that person, just for a second, enlarges. It is like he is
seen with a telescope. When someone is talking about a really strong person
that someone changes into a really strong person, again just a second. There
are also nice little details like changing buttons or a glass that breaks
because someone screams.
Those little things, the great visuals and the interesting and intelligent
ideas make this movie worth watching more than once. On the other hand I can
understand it when you don't like this movie. There is not a real plot
(although I think there are some deeper things here if you watch closely)
and may be you can't stand the animations this way. I myself liked it very
much, I admired it completely.