Photo: Julie Delpy as Celine and Ethan Hawke as Jesse in Richard Linklater's Waking Life
To discuss Waking Life you have to speak of slackers and stoners, but will anyone other than potheads and fans of Caveh Zahedi (I Was Possessed By God) care for it? Even if you don't appreciate Linklater's philosophy, his visual innovation is arresting: Shot on video, the film's images were animated using computer software and a machine called the Wacom Tablet. The effect is hallucinatory, with the filmic space turned into a plane-shifting realm of free-floating ontology. Whether it's a product of stoic contemplation or reefer madness, Linklater's waking life becomes an elusive, one-way vehicle to God. If destiny lies in dreams—as the little girl says in the beginning of the film—then what is to be made of the lucid dreamer, the one that consciously controls the logic of the dream? And if there is a God, is there such a thing as free will? The film is a flurry of questions and answers, though its up to the audience to determine which ones are the most meaningful.
To discuss Waking Life you have to speak of slackers and stoners, but will anyone other than potheads and fans of Caveh Zahedi (I Was Possessed By God) care for it? Even if you don't appreciate Linklater's philosophy, his visual innovation is arresting: Shot on video, the film's images were animated using computer software and a machine called the Wacom Tablet. The effect is hallucinatory, with the filmic space turned into a plane-shifting realm of free-floating ontology. Whether it's a product of stoic contemplation or reefer madness, Linklater's waking life becomes an elusive, one-way vehicle to God. If destiny lies in dreams—as the little girl says in the beginning of the film—then what is to be made of the lucid dreamer, the one that consciously controls the logic of the dream? And if there is a God, is there such a thing as free will? The film is a flurry of questions and answers, though its up to the audience to determine which ones are the most meaningful.
