Reviews of Waking Life 2001
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Honestly I was a bit tired and drunk when I watched this, so I don't remember much of it. I watched it with friends, stopping it to discuss the film after each remark. I enjoyed it, but a more detailed appraisal will have to wait until I can rewatch it.
The animation is also great.
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I've seen the film plenty times before, but watching it after Before Sunrise really added to the experience. Seeing the scene of Celine and Jesse in bed, discussing dream states, after seeing their first conversation makes this scene kind of heartbreaking. Their ties are only created by the dream state, and waking state instantly severs them, leading the two back into reality, away from each other.
Also, it's very clear that even if Celine and Jesse got back together 6…
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This film always makes me feel like I don't know enough about philosophy, but I love the connection to Before Sunrise/Sunset/Midnight. The style of animation on top of live film is a cool effect but I have to look away a bit because I get a bit queasy.
Also this quote:
"On really romantic evenings of self, I go salsa dancing with my confusion." -
Waking Life is an artsy and philosophical film about existentialism, dreams and consciousness, it's enitrely rotoscoped and feels more like an experience than watching a film, very cerebral and thoughtful without much plot.
It focuses on a series of conversations and lectures in which the main character in a perceptual state of dreaming, moves from person to person and passively listens to what they have to say.
We are actually following his stream of consciousness as he awakes from the illusion of life, it's very inspiring and intellectually refreshing. -
Amo a Richard Linklater, pero esto es muy extraño.
Aunque Jesse y Celine :B
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I dreamed that I watched this film, and then dreamed that I checked it on Letterboxd.
At first I was trying to listen to each word, fearful that I would miss something important to the plot, but once I realized that it was better to let them wash over me I started enjoying this more. (It also would have been better if I'd seen this several years ago, when many of the theories were part of my normal college conversations).…
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This movie still hits me hard. I've probably watched it five or six times and it always has something new to give me. There are parts I was too high to understand when I was nineteen and watching this in my Allston apartment. In fact, there was one night where we put it on in my room in the middle of a party. Drunk strangers would open my door thinking it was the bathroom only to find a roomful of…
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I admire the ambition and the intention, but this is the cinematic equivalent of eavesdropping on a bunch of philosophical discussions you aren't really invested in. It was good to see Jesse and Celine again, though.
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I did what I normally do not and clicked on its letterbox'd page prior to watching, glancing at the top review- ''The most pretentious film ever made.'', it solemnly says, half a star. Interest is piqued. The IMDb brief synopsis says ''A man shuffles through a dream meeting various people and discussing the meanings and purposes of the universe.'', erection rising, well, what ever could this film be.
This is my 7th Linklater film, of which I have not been… -
A fun trip down memory lane. Not as amazing as I thought it was back when I was in college but just a ponderous and thought provoking, even more so in my late 20s than in my late teens. It's fun to think about this version of Celine and Jesse compared to one in Before Sunset
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Fascinating structure. It does approximate aspects of dreaming fairly well, though I'm not sure it works. the talky ideas aren't incredibly resonant. There are decently interesting concepts, that's for certain. But they're being delivered mostly by people just standing and talking. It doesn't much matter that they're animated uniquely because that doesn't suddenly make the brief interactions more worthwhile to invest in. I dunno.
Wiley Wiggins has some odd quality that he brings to his performances that I remain unable…
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One of the most cerebral and interesting films of the decade, Richard Lanklater explores philosophy, society and dreams in this unique and truly wonderful film. You may or not be in love with the rotoscope technique, I thought it added to the dream-like state the film is trying to convey however many of the pieces you could just listen to and be inspired by. This is an exploratory piece without narrative which asks the questions we do "what am I supposed to do with my life?" Whatever the answer, Waking Life is worth the time and effort to ponder and experience.