Waking Life
2001
Written and Directed by Richard Linklater

I've never taken a hallucinogenic drug but this movie is about as close to a mind-altering state as I've ever come. It's stream of consciousness, random style is somewhat off-putting at first, but soon it's talk show smorgasbord format of philosophy, literature, poetry and religion interviews and cliché's nouveau pulls you in. It's the Kierkegaard-to-the present chapters of Sophie's World- A Novel About the History of Philosophy (Jostein Gaardner, 1996) brought to life.

At the very least it's a head trip you won't want to miss.

Wiley Wiggens (the name of one of the real animators) drifts off into a dream world, journeys in and out of waking and dreaming and struggles along on a journey for consciousness and meaning.

Two characters (one an Ethan Hawke clone) discuss the 6 to 12 minutes of brain activity that is said to continue after death and in those moments one can live an entire lifetime. Is it real? Or not?

Ah, to match one's life to the infinite possibility of one's dreams, to dream an experience and experience a dream, to question whether one sleepwalks through life or wakewalks through dreams..

Roger Ebert, ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY, the New York Times and others named "Waking Life" one of its ten best films of 2001, and I have to agree, even though it's got a strong male bias and places products just like all the big movies of the year. "Waking Life" is a low-budget, highly creative, original, piece of animated filmmaking that was screened at several film festivals including Sundance, Venice (where it won the 'CinemAvvenire' Award and was nominated for the Golden Lion) and Toronto.

"Waking Life" spouts forth every value message known to the Western world in a verbal parade of paradoxes and juxtapositions, almost always uttered by the same person in any given scene. "Waking Life" seems as if professors of semiotics, linguistics, literature, philosophy, psychology, religion, communications and media and so on and so forth scripted it. Add Professor Steven Soderbergh to the mix in a brilliant little DVD chapter on cinema entitled "The Holy Moment" and you know Richard Linklater ("Slacker", 1995) must be as close to genius level in quirky cognition as the Coen Brothers are to comic madness.

"If everything is false, then everything is possible." Okay, let's talk about that.

It makes social-political commentary as well. For example, some will not appreciate the scene in the bar about guns, but it sure worked for me. It is too short to explain here, so please see it for yourself.

According to the viewer's lens, anyone can find almost anything but in the final analysis five things attracted me to "Waking Life": its search for human dignity and respect for humanity, its willingness to talk about human freedom and responsibility, its regard for human communication as the way for people to be connected, its risky intelligence and gentle humor and lastly, its spirituality, that is, its regard for God's action in the world and God's relationship to human beings. When God asks us if we want to be in eternity, the answer is "all life is moving from 'no' to 'yes'"

Indeed, if I were asked to place this film in "dialogue" with a Scripture reading, I would choose St. John's Prologue because both offer much wisdom and invite us to contemplate the Incarnation of the Word.

My favorite line in the whole film is when the character Speed says he likes to go salsa dancing with his confusion.

Teachers, youth and adult faith-formation ministers will discover that this is an ideal film for reflection and conversation in any class associated with the topics noted above. The film is segmented naturally into chapters so if a teacher is prepared, "Waking Life" can breathe new vitality into classes and conferences.

You've just gotta love this movie. It's pop art done fine.