2001 Directed by Richard Linklater
Waking Life is about a young man in a persistent lucid dream-like state. The film follows its protagonist as he initially observes and later participates in philosophical discussions that weave together issues like reality, free will, our relationships with others, and the meaning of life.
Anne Walker-McBay John Sloss Jonathan Sehring Caroline Kaplan Palmer West Jonah Smith Tommy Pallotta
Line Research Fox Searchlight Pictures Thousand Words Flat Black Films Detour Filmproduction Independent Film Channel
Despertando a la vida, Valve-unessa, Waking Life: Prisonnier du rêve, Пробуждение жизни
>Be me
>At Dimple Records
>Planned on purchasing 'Aladdin 2: The Return of Jafar'
>In line, see a gorgeous clerk
>Looks like Cybill Sheperd
>Long ass line
>Finally the penultimate person at the front of the line
>I take that back, she looks more like Ingrid Bergman
>Hear her mention her favorite director - Richard Linklater
>Get nervous
>Spaghetti falls out of my pockets
>I run out of line, nearly slipping on the spaghetti
>Picked up 'Waking Life', trying to impress her with my taste in film
>Discard the Disney masterpiece
>Line is shorter when I get back in
>Getting more nervous
>Start farting
>Shouldn't have eaten Taco Bell for breakfast
>See her laugh at her co-worker
>Her smile is…
I briefly checked the letterbox'd page for this before deciding on whether or not to watch it and glanced at the top review - "The most pretentious film ever made" - it solemnly says, half a star. Interest is piqued. The synopsis says "A man shuffles through a dream meeting various people and discussing the meanings and purposes of the universe", erection rising, well, whatever could this film be.
Linklater ramps up his desultory magnetizm to the highest level of his career, the oneiric nausea is tantalizing and palpable, the rotoscoped directory creating waves of surreality and somnambulant endearment that create the absolute essence of batshit insanity aka the human kaleidoscopic dream. The number one rule of lucid dreaming they…
If I watch anymore Linkater films today, I think my head will explode.
And, I'm perfectly okay with that.
Waking Life is a beautiful, quiet, and (at times) transcendent experience.
Nothing more can be said. As mentioned above, you need to experience it. So? Go ahead, check it out!
waking life (2001) absolutely NAILS what lucid dreaming is actually like AND has a cameo from celine & jesse of the before trilogy?!?! inception (2010) can't compete!!!!
70/100
Third viewing, first since 2002. A lot has happened to me since then, dreamwise—I now have occasional lucid dreams*, which had never happened to me back then, and have also experienced multiple consecutive false awakenings, which really is disturbing as hell. (The factoid mentioned here about adjusting light levels is 100% true, by the way. When I suspect that I'm still dreaming, after seeming to awaken in my bed, I head for the bathroom and try to turn on the light, which never works and usually wakes me up instantly for real. What's more, the house is always darker than it should be, though it's hard to perceive that in the moment.) So I identified more with Wiggins' feeling…
Like the picture itself, I’m just going to convey some of my impressions really quickly. The untitled main character of Waking Life finds himself in a perpetual state of lucid dreaming, but it soon becomes clear that the dream he’s stuck in is no ordinary one: this is the dream, one that will change everything about the way he perceives, experiences and directs his life once he finally wakes up from it (if ever). It consists of brief separate conversations between himself and random figures who shoot philosophical thoughts at him, ranging from abstract existentialism to more accessible life-choice analyses. We see our protagonist evolve, learning to control his dream and take a more prominent stance in it. Whereas the…
I genuinely do not know what to say. The animation is incredibly odd and bizarre that it put in a daze. Everything about this film put me in a dream-like trance. I did feel like it was a bit too heavy on lectures, but I got used to it pretty quickly. I was not bored. How could I be bored when I'm still thinking about it? Waking Life is truly something original that I cannot properly express.
2am dorm room convos with an animation style that makes you feel like you’re stoned. Needless to say, I loved it.
This was novel when it first came out and I still admire a lot about it. It functions more as a polemic and thought experiment than any actual narrative and it should not be judged by narrative standards. Still, the depth to this film operates on modicum of editing. Often it jumps from heavy topic to heavy topic with little room to breathe. It batters you a bit that way. The animating effects are really marvelous and fun to observe but this film takes all your energy just listening to it.
I liked parts of this, other parts came across as pretentious, and other parts had bad acting that was rambling and sounded really recited. I did like the premise and the trippy animation.
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