Waking Life

Waking Life is a film directed by Richard Linklater starring Ethan Hawke. It is a journey of film through a semi-dream world of this character who inexplicably cuts between scenarios and difference conversations. As the main character encounters these different personalities it tests his own beliefs and thoughts and forces him to make his own realizations. On the Apollo Movie Guide Review, Brian Webster gives a beaming review of the film.

He very appropriately begins his review by covering some of the topics that the main character talks about, such as philosophy, dreams, and humans place in humanity. These are some of the topic that the main character delves into with the other characters that he encounters. I strongly agree with Brian Webster's take the film that well some of the topics visited may be a bit cliche, the film takes them to a point of intelligence and comprehension that makes them into new ideas.

Bringing the title into the dissection of the film as well as the review, Webster very eloquently acknowledges one of the key points in the film, the discussion of dreaming vs. reality and what really separates the two, if anything...

“As one realizes that one is a dream figure in someone else’s dream – that is self awareness.”

This is a really important part of the movie, so important in fact that it is the title. I like Webster's critique because he realizes how vital this question is to the film. It is supposed to make you question your beliefs on different topics and make sure you can support what you believe and why. All this in only the dialogue, the actual filming is where this movie differentiates itself from the rest...

"Made using ‘rotoscoping,’ the film is both highly realistic and stylized at the same time. Rotoscoping takes live action film as its starting point, and then builds animation on top of it. The result is a perplexing mix of realism – especially facial expressions that you just don’t see in other forms of animation – and symbolism, and an equally interesting mix of computer animation and hand painting. Since the live action film was shot using handheld digital cameras, there’s a heightened sense of being right there with the characters as they discuss evolution, collective memory, revolutionary dogma and other fascinating subjects"

This quote really shows why i like Webster's analysis style as i completely agree with this. The semi-animated realistic camera style makes the movie all the more intimate as well as puts enormous dramatic emphasis on the ideas being raised. This effect makes the viewer feel as if they are experiencing this in person.

After reading this review i think that i will look to Brian Webster for reviews as i believe that this was a fair, intelligent well written review.