Linklater’s Revel in Existence

Richard Linklater’s latest film, Hit Man, has once again established the director and writer as one of the most adept American filmmakers working today. Hit Man was released in select theaters on May 24, then streamed onto Netflix on June 7, amassing rave reviews from critics and audiences. The film holds a 97% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Linklater previously made classics such as School of Rock, Dazed and Confused, and the Before trilogy films. But under the spotlight of his current success, one of his lesser-known films—Waking Life—should be appreciated for the celebration of creation it is.

Linklater’s 2001 animated film, Waking Life, presents a bizarre, beautiful lecture on life, reality, and the lack thereof.

Scene from Waking Life

Waking Life is a wonderfully unique film. Despite its creativity, it remains frustratingly underrated; and due to its strangeness, innocuously divisive. Its reviews see-saw between lauding it as a mind-opening, intellectual gem, and deriding it for being a snobbish piece of self-obsession.

Film critic Roger Ebert called it, “philosophical and playful at the same time” and “an extravagantly inventive film.” Meanwhile, one of the top reviews on the film reviewing app, Letterboxd, hails it as “the most pretentious film ever made.”—½ star out of 5.

The film stands as all of these characteristics. It lives up to its praises and its critiques. Waking Life excels in being both artful and dizzying, profound and dense, creative and obnoxious. But who determines when intellectualism crosses the line between thoughtful and exhaustive? What’s so wrong with a filmmaker being self-indulgent; is that not the purpose of making films, and couldn’t all films be called self-indulgent?

Linklater has said that Waking Life was a concept incubating in his mind for nearly 20 years. As a passion project, his zeal translates to the film’s fans as well.

“There’s no story,” one of the film’s characters begrudgingly explains when asked what he’s writing. “It’s just people, gestures, moments, bits of rapture, fleeting emotions. In short, the greatest stories ever told.”

Ok, maybe this is a little self-serving, Linklater essentially claiming his film—also a collection of “people, gestures, moments”—is the greatest story ever told. But he’s not completely wrong. The film contemplates humanity and philosophy, prompting viewers to think about life and consciousness in a completely new sense.

Waking Life’s loosely-structured form bases itself on conversations rather than characters or a narrative plot. It floats from scene to scene of intellectual and philosophical conversations—vignettes of theories, ideologies, sciences, and epiphanies. Linklater calls for the film’s viewers to leave the 1 hour and 40-minute runtime looking at the world around them differently, appreciating life in all its forms—from waking to dreaming.

One should avoid living passively through life, the film says. We must be more conscious of our interactions, our identities, our knowledge—both conscious and subconscious—our past, and our future. We need to stop being ants, as one character says.

“We go through life with our antennas bouncing off one another, continuously on ant autopilot, with nothing really human required of us,” she laments.

The first half of Waking Life explains theories of life, identity, society, and language through conversations with various philosophers, professors, and scholars. Existentialism, the new evolutionary paradigm, and the paradox of language are just a few of these lessons. Halfway through the film, however, the main character—who remains unnamed throughout—becomes aware that he has been dreaming this entire time, and all these conversations he’s been listening to and participating in have been figments of his subconscious. Following this disorienting realization, he engages in conversations about how to navigate lucid dreaming and how to appreciate life in both its waking and dreaming states.

One of the characters he meets—a man who fantastically materializes on a bridge—explains how crucial it is to experience life rather than simply live through it, to challenge the realms of day-to-day life and watch in wonder as you see the results.

“Life is a matter of a miracle that is collected over time by moments flabbergasted to be in each other’s presence. The world is an exam to see if we can rise into the direct experiences. Our eyesight is here as a test to see if we can see beyond it. Matter is here as a test for our curiosity. Doubt is here as an exam for our vitality,” he expresses.

The scene is not just a lecture on existence via literary figures like Lorca, Dostoyevsky, Mann, and Giacometti, but a summation of the film’s thesis. With this scene, Linklater essentially says to the viewer, “I’ve given you lessons on life, now use them to live it.”

This scene perfectly represents the unique animation style of Waking Life as well.

The film relies on its hypnotic feeling of fluidity and uncanny. Through the film’s use of rotoscope—where animation is drawn over filmed footage—people, objects, and structures appear detached from their physicality. The animation constantly wavers and drifts across the screen, creating a dizzying, dreamlike feeling that causes the viewer to feel somewhat out of control.

In this same scene, the bridge sways as if it’s the water within which it is built, and the color of the sky changes with each syllable spoken. Symbols materialize then disappear. For example, stars and color explode within the frame as this character speaks of “the ongoing wow.” The background turns black and clowns float into frame as he describes life as “a gigantic Dostoyevsky novel starring clowns.”

The film’s animation demonstrates that nothing is tangible, especially existence.

Waking Life might not be for everybody. Parts of the film can understandably feel like a bombardment of overwhelming intellectualism. And, in tandem with the rapidly changing visuals, risks being overstimulating. For instance, in a vignette of a man explaining the new evolutionary paradigm, the man is speaking quickly, describing complex concept after complex concept, leaving the viewer without much time to pause and understand what he is actually saying. All the while, the background fades in and out and his face warps into different shapes—all posing the threat of distracting the viewer from an already confounding conversation. Leaving this specific scene, viewers may feel thrown off and discombobulated. But that’s kind of the whole point of the film.

Waking Life bases itself upon this feeling of disorientation—of being allured yet confused, drawn in by the uncanny.

Many of the characters are unnamed, played by unknown actors (most are not even actors, but actual philosophers, professors, and scholars), and seen only once. With this, the viewer’s relationship with the characters therefore mirrors a dream. Unfamiliar people are addressed as known in the context of a dream. We don’t necessarily have names for all the characters in our dreams; they are just people and faces we are somehow familiar with.

The film’s elusive use of animation contributes to this sensation as well. Some of the objects and signs seen within a frame have been rewritten or distorted so as to mimic the uncanny feeling of a dream. For example, when the main character is talking to a man with a pin on his jacket, every time the scene goes back to a shot of the man, his pin is different. Additionally, there is a scene where the main character is walking through a convenience store, and all the names of the candy bars are rewritten: “Hersey’s” is “Hercules,” “Mentos” are “Memos,” and “Junior Mints” are “Junior Pants.”

While the entire film feels nonsensical, it’s all exquisitely intentional, allowing the viewer to feel as if they are in a dream themselves. Waking Life acts as more than just a film, but a viewing experience, prompting deep thought and consideration of life, reality, and consciousness.

“That’s what film has—that moment, which is holy,” another character says, speaking about the power of film.

Waking Life, therefore, produces holy moment after holy moment; a wholly divine experience.