Waking Life

In class, we have been watching a very interesting film, Waking Life. Release in 2001, this film is one which without out, gets people thinking.

In a broad scope, Waking Life is about a young man in a persistent lucid dream-like state. The film follows its protagonist as he initially observes and later participates in philosophical discussions that weave together issues like appearance and reality, free will, our relationships with others, and the meaning of life. Along the way the film touches on other topics including existentialism, posthumanity, and the film theory of André Bazin. The young man eventually comes to the realization that he is dreaming and that he is unable to wake up. By the end of the film, he fears that he might be dead. In this way, it may have been influenced by Ambrose Bierce's "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" (wikipedia).

The above quote pretty much somes up the moving perfectly. When seeing it in class for the first time, once I saw that it was an animated film, I really did not think that it would be that interesting. Little did I know at the time however, was that this film would be one of the most interesting films in a long, long time.