Waking Life

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Waking Life is a film by Richard Linklater (Dazed & Confused, a Scanner Darkly) about an unnamed protagonist's odyssey through a labyrinth of dream sequences both wrought with heavy existential retrospect met with delicate self-realization and epiphany. The film is done in the rotoscoping style of animation, and the visual aesthetics lends a tremendous amount to the themes of what I consider a masterpiece of visual story telling-meets-philosophical musings about life, death, and everything in between.

I'm pretty much at a loss for words with this one. It's tough to discuss one-sidedly, as I am sure many that have seen it will sympathize. But hey- I'll do my best.

I love film, animation, dream science and philosophy. Waking Life is the top-shelf blend of those elements as far as I am concerned, and it covers a LOT of ground during the one hundred and one minute run time. Some of my favorite philosophic bullet points would be:

- existentialism, the core of the narrative

- solipsism

- epistemology

- nihilism

- evolutionary theory

- stream of consciousness, and subconscious connectivity

Some really far-out mind bending stuff awaits you in this animated epic, and I wish I could say more, but I wouldn't even know where to begin...other than to say this-

Watch Waking Life.

It's amazing in a way a lot of movies aren't

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