“It’s about life and how you perceive it….” So declares Wiley Wiggins (the protagonist in Dazed and Confused) at the opening of Waking Life, for which Linklater utilized the then-new method of rotoscoping animation. The result is a fever of brightly hued, rippling, and fluidly dreamlike images as companion to the film’s philosophical musings—a “truly living and breathing work of art” (Film Threat). Featuring a cast of more than 50 characters, Waking Life is a “shape-shifting head trip that ruminates on psychodynamic experience as it visually captures the essence of subjectivity in a manner no film ever has before” (Village Voice). 2001, 35mm, 99 minutes.
