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10 April 2012
High concept

Plot Richard Linklater returns to Slacker territory (after mainstream failures such as The Newton Boys) with a plotless surf through the big stuff. Waking Life follows a student through a surreal dreamscape as he contemplates free will/determinism, the path to spiritual enlightenment, postmodernism, reincarnation - all the while unsure as to whether he's awake or not. Deep.

Can you digit? Linklater shot the film on digital video, then had it 'rotoscoped' by different teams of animators. The effect is half-live half-cartoon.

Any colour you like as long as it isn't red Post The Simpsons, America's film-makers have used animation as a way of saying the unsayable and the unsellable. Because Linklater used different animators for different characters/scenes, audiences have been hanging on through the 'difficult' bits - extended ramble about the writings of French film critic Andr? Bazin, for example - just to see what the next scene is going to look like.

Verdicts 'Like being in a college bar and listening to your companion blathering on about the secrets of the world' - USA Today. 'As exhilarating in its style and visuals as in its ideas' - Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times.

International Movie Database rating 8.9/10.

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