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List Price: $9.98 | | Label: 20th Century Fox
Salesrank: 1964
Released: May 7, 2002 |
| Our Price: $3.50 |
| Used Price: $2.50 |
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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
A man in a dream state begins to question whether waking or dreaming is the true reality; while on his journey in the dream he meets many interesting characters who talk with him about the meaning of life, perception and human existance.
Genre: Feature Film-Comedy
Rating: R
Release Date: 15-APR-2003
Media Type: DVD
Description of Waking Life:
Waking Life is a film that never settles down. Or maybe it never wakes up. Regardless, Richard Linklater's animated meditation seems to strike a perfect balance between the plotless meanderings of Slacker and the unquenchable knowledge-seeking of Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha. Any way you look at it, this is a weird, original movie.
As he attempts to figure out what separates dreams from reality, the protagonist (Dazed and Confused's Wiley Wiggins) hears an earful from everyone he stumbles upon. Ramblings range from the scholarly (Linklater's former college professor Robert C. Solomon gives a monologue) to the banal (of which there are plenty). Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy, Steven Soderbergh, and Adam Goldberg all get animated cameos, basically playing themselves. The dream-centered dialogues eventually grow mind-numbing, but that's OK; the animation steals the show. Each frame of the movie, which was first shot with live actors, was painted over, and the process renders a distorted and trippy collage of sights and sounds. Linklater's film is ultimately quite poignant, but, as with any good journey, you'll need to sit through some fairly tedious moments before reaching the destination. --Jason Verlinde
Waking Life Reviews:
What a trip! 
2008-07-22 - This is possibly my favorite movie of all-time. The movie is about an adolescent kid who is stuck in a dream he keeps waking up from and navigates his way talking to various people each with deep philosophical outlooks on life. The entire movie was filmed with real people then animated over, which makes it unique. The animation alone makes this movie worth seeing and is going to make you feel like you're on drugs. In the words of a fellow college student "This movie will rape your perception of reality".
Indie Greatness
2008-06-12 - So the great Richard Linklater gave us Slacker and Dazed and Confused, but then he gave us this wonderful work of art.
I really am not going to say much about the film, but that is extremely fun and well-made, and for the price of the DVD, you almost have to check it out! It will get you thinking..
Original 
2008-06-11 - My first thought was that it looked a bit like a university student's final project, and I don't mean that in a bad way.
I remember hearing a little of the buzz when this was new. Only a little, since I was living in Asia at the time. But live action was converted to animation through some process. That sounds like a gimmick, but in fact it's an ideal process for this particular story.
I don't know what I was expecting when we popped this into the player, since my lovely wife ordered it. But what I got was a lot of deep philosophical discussion of the sort that I thought about often as a student, and still do from time to time. Good brain food here, and a fine example that animation can do more than bring toys and superheroes to life.
So on the whole, I'm impressed. Later, I plan to enjoy the extra features and learn more about just how this was made. It's a very cool way to use technology, and at its heart it's still a story about people, and one that could've worked just as well without the animation process.
Slow, monotonous, but artistically good.
2008-05-20 - It's annoying when a good idea goes essentially nowhere. The premise is great, as a man struggles to reconcile the existential angst of human existence. He walks through a perpetual dream world, talking with several people, all of which give their own view on the nature of reality and our relation to it. All to often I felt like I was in a freshman philosophy course in which the professor rambles on about a multitude of different topics, none of which are in enough depth to really get anything out of. Just because someone talks about deep topics doesn't make the conversation deep.
After a very long middle section and several too many lectures, the movie actually gets somewhere as the protagonist starts to understand his dilemma and tried to wake up. Unfortunately, while the ending does make everything come full circle, it is also glaringly obvious.
A good point is the animation, giving an interesting new surreal landscape with every scene. At least that was well done, just would have been nice if it was more than a meandering sophomoric attempt at real understanding of some very complicated issues.
Love the DVD!
2008-05-17 - This DVD is so great. I haven't watched the whole thing start to finish, but instead chapter segments. It's refreshing to watch a movie that provokes thought.
