Waking Life | One moment at a time

This was long overdue.

After A wrote here about Richard Linklater's intermittently philosophical gabfest in the guise of movie that is Waking Life, I knew I had to throw in some words to bring positive balance back in to the cosmos. 

True to the spirit of the movie, I present my views here (mostly disagreements with A), one moment at a time.

Firstly, the trivial matter of roto-scope as the medium of presentation, an incidental matter of choice which finds much more favour and acceptance with me and perhaps less with others. I like the medium, for it continuously summates and conveys the lucid dream state, an idea that is central to the movie. The other reason, with the benefit of hindsight, that it does not overtly hijack the underlying story. Inception, the Nolan-Di-Caprio classic, tinkered with the idea of dreams and conscious dreams, but the opulent magnificence of photography, at times, can throw the audience off-script. Arguably, it could be a plus for the movie or not, depending on the audacity of execution. 

Understanding Waking Life, depends on your willingness to let go of the comforting and familiar notions about what to expect from a movie, for this is a far more rigorous cinematic experience, relying primarily on conversations. Monologues, dialogues, soliloquies and debates in various forms. Protests to pillow talk. Lectures to outbursts. Featuring people some real and some not. Prominent real life characters in the movie include Louis Mackey, Timothy Levitch, Kim Krizan etc.

It is through these conversations, that the movie touches upon various ideas, philosophical, metaphysical, cultural, anarchist/nihilist, existentialist, evolutionary, reality/perception, political. Floating along the ether, from one point to the next, the narration attaches itself momentarily, taking shape through a conversation and moves on to the next in the same fluid motion with which it initially began. To take one such idea and hold it out as a focal point, is impossible.

From scene one, the movie sets adrift onto a journey touching as many thoughts from our collective consciousness as possible. Progressing from one moment to the next, without any particular transition. There can be none, for a sequential transition would have been antithetical to the idea of dreaming, for we do not follow a logical or linear sequence of events in our dreams. The movie, perhaps in itself is an idea whose time has not yet come.

On a personal note, I believe Waking Life deserves much more credit from the global cinematic machinery than it got. In terms of Linklaters' oeuvre, it fits fantastically and sits comfortably right next to the Proustian Dazed and Confused.  

And to end, I quote the lines from one of my many favourite monologues from the movie. This one by Timothy Levitch:

" On this bridge, Lorca warns: life is not a dream.
Beware, and beware, and beware!

And so many think because then happened, now isn’t.

But didn’t I mention, the on-going WOW is happening, right now!

We are all co-authors of this dancing exuberance, where even our inabilities are having a roast! We are the authors of ourselves, co-authoring a gigantic Dostoevsky novel starring clowns!

This entire thing we’re involved with called the world, is an opportunity to exhibit how exciting alienation can be.

Life is a matter of a miracle, that is collected over time by moments flabbergasted to be in each others’ 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.

Thomas Mann wrote that he would rather participate in life than write a hundred stories. Giacometti was once run down by a car, and he recalled falling in to a lucid faint, a sudden exhilaration, as he realized at last, something was happening to him.

An assumption develops that you cannot understand life and live life simultaneously. I do not agree entirely, which is to say I do not exactly disagree. I would say, thatlife understood is life lived. But the paradoxes bug me. 

And I can learn to love, and make love to the paradoxes that bug me. And on really romantic evenings of Self, I go salsa dancing with my confusion.

Before you drift off, don’t forget, which is to say remember. Because remembering is so much more a psychotic activity than forgetting. Lorca, in that same poem, said that the iguana will bite those who do not dream. And, as one realizes, that one is a dream-figure in another person’s dream: that is self-awareness!"

Would love to hear your thoughts on it once you've seen it.

Love,
ReviewKaka

PS: I shared Shekhar Kapoor/MPKK composed Good bye my love, last week. Here's the link to their only other compilation: Today.