Waking Life review

Katy O’ Connor Julie Delpy and Ethan
Hawke are depicted in Waking Life.

By Katie Leff
Daily Bruin Contributor

It’s time for Wiley to wake up.

Richard Linklater’s latest film, “Waking
Life,” is the story of Wiley Wiggins, better known as the
awkwardly adorable Mitch from another Linklater film, “Dazed
and Confused.”

This time, Mitch isn’t running from paddle-wielding
seniors. Instead, he’s moving toward a deeper understanding
of what it really means to be alive.

The innovative animation and the meandering reflective nature of
the plot are enough to hold any audience’s attention ““
although it might help if they’ve smoked a lot of pot.

“Waking Life” tackles the question of just what
reality is. Throughout the film, Wiggins is trapped in a dream from
which he can’t seem to wake up. What he believes to be a
dream just might be his reality, and his reality just might be a
dream.

This film questions the malleability of what we believe to be
reality through an innovative animation technique known as digital
rotoscoping. Live actors are filmed, and then the shots are
painted, creating a depth previously unknown to animation.

This method provides a surreal effect that serves to heighten
the question begged by the premise of the film: what is real? What
is the product of creativity? By using this kind of animation, the
medium itself becomes a part of the plot.

As the audience interprets the varying colors and shapes used to
bring the animated characters to life, the realization hits that
the characters really are alive, and a whole new dimension is
brought to the film.

Reality can also be glimpsed through the colors imposed upon the
actors, building on the idea that what we see may not be what
really is, but then again, it very well could be.

The progression of the film takes Wiggins on a journey in which
he encounters character after character, all of which are all too
willing to impart their reflections on what it is that makes up
reality, if reality even exists at all.

Does Wiggins ever wake up? Maybe, but it’s
inconsequential. The whole point is that none of us may ever be
awake, that our reality might be one of our own dreams. We may even
be living someone else’s, dreams.

At times the film can be tedious. Some of the characters seem to
be spouting out self-indulgent crap as a result of what seems to be
a drug-induced frenzy, but at others the ideas put forth are
provocative and give voice to universal theories and emotions that
few can find words for.

All in all, this film is definitely worth seeing, even if it is
just a good excuse to get high.