Review of Waking Life (2001) by Graham L — 20 Jul 2008

I was genuinely committed to sitting through this entire film when I first heard about it, but I just couldn't do it. The premise of a guy in a dream floating around a city and listening to people's prolonged existential musings (not like you might read in Heidegger - more like, the know it all self-centered intellectual who breaks everything down to complicated theories) starts to get stale after about 20 minutes, and then the movie just keeps on going without a shift in tone or situation.

The animation technique is impressive, and I don't want to encourage anyone NOT to see this - to some, prolonged existential musings for 90 minutes might be pure entertainment.