Waking Life
Picture: A- Sound: B+ Extras: A- Film: B+
Waking Life, if nothing else, deserves applause for
imagination as it combines animation and live action, with a philosophical
approach to an ordinary day in the life of one individual in their quest for
answers, while mixing realism and surrealism.
One thing that the film certainly has going for it would be its ability
to carry the viewer through the world it creates and never become too boring or
dry. It feels like a philosophy class at
times, but as it answers questions it also answers some. It’s never too pushy with some of the
commentary that it presents and allows the viewer to experience everything as
our main character does. At times, we
almost feel like we are the ones walking through this film.
It’s hard to list all the
various topics that the film addresses, but some of them would include what is
love, do we chose our destiny, can we control our life, etc. The film was first shot with live action on
video using a Sony DCR-TRV900 and then rotoscope-animated on Mac G4 computers
animated overtop before it was finally transferred onto 35mm film. Since the film was going to be animated
over, it wasn’t that important for the original to ‘look’ that stunning, but
only to capture the basics. Animation,
music, added voice, and sound effects would be added later, so the basic camera
setup, was just to have a framework that already had the dimensions of the real
world. The animation would then allow
for that world to be retransmitted with various effects to give it a new
dimension. There is constant motion to
the scenery in the film. The frame
comes alive with colors and movement.
The picture quality is
extremely pleasing with only a slight amount of softness with the picture. Colors are very rich with a broad mix of
palette giving the film a distinct look.
Waking Life is presented in an anamorphically enhanced widescreen
transfer preserving the films original theatrical aspect ratio of 1.85:1. All the depth can be seen and during one
scene in particular, the one with the monkey talking, you can see a clip from
Akira Kurosawa’s Dreams in the background.
Sound design for this film
is interesting and at times subtle, but with constant involvement of
music. It would have been an extra nice
surprise for Fox to include DTS audio as well as the Dolby Digital 5.1, but
there was no such occurrence. You can
certainly hear some of the limitations with the sound as the low and high end
is dramatically cut and rather thin, which DTS would have eliminated this
problem.
Supplements are very
plentiful on the DVD and quite interesting.
The first is a commentary track provided by over 25 of the films
animators. This is quite overwhelming,
but each one is introduced and add a lot of interesting and useful blurbs on
the film, the process from which it was made, the effects used, and much
more. There is also text commentary
provided, which is more distracting than audio commentary and also more hurtful
on the eyes after awhile. Some deleted
scenes were included as well as live-action footage for the viewer to access as
a comparison to what the video looked like in live action versus the final
product. These are just some of the
supplements that occupy the disc. Even
the trailer is interesting and should have been used more as a marketing tool
for this under seen film.
It’s challenging to think
of who might like a film like this. Some retailers are even unsure of what
category to classify the DVD under. Is
it an animated film? Should it be in
with Anime? Should it be under special
interest? Or is it just a drama? Whatever the case it is very interesting and
the supplements add yet another dimension and complete this DVD and make it all
the more special. It may not be a film
that you can sit through a lot, but it will be something you will most likely
revisit time and time again and let good friends borrow. You may even let not-so-good friends borrow
it.
- Nate Goss
