danielgrabowy Brilliant film. I do feel like only certain people will enjoy it though. If you are a lucid dreamer or if you have contemplated the meaning of existence for some time, this may be for you.In my opinion the entire film is quoteworthy and also it is one of the few films that I'd easily watch directly again after just having watched it. Technique, music, idea, narrators, filmography, all simply fits. This film is a masterpiece!

Kinan Aljannan Waking life is one of those movies, that in the middle of them you just know that It's the kind of movies that you know you are going to watch over and over again. it handles a bunch of the hardest questions that many intellectual and open minds ask in life, where you seem you have someone to speak with you about some of the ideas that go through your mind. Excellent movie.

rooee Filmed as an indie quickie before going through its arduous and peculiar rotoscoping process in post, Waking Life is Richard Linklater's 2001 ode to the existential. Wiley Wiggins plays... well, who-knows-who, a young man drifting through a series of encounters with a range of characters (played by various actors including Linklater regulars Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy and Adam Goldberg), all delivering unto him dense philosophical monologues or dialogues. The plot is as faint as a half-remembered dream; although it is implied that Wiggins' protagonist is killed by a car at the start, and I got the sense that in that terminal moment he is recalling a series of profound human moments throughout his life. If nothing else, the wispily connected scenes provide an accessible introduction to modern philosophy, covering topics such as free will, human potential, neuroscience, time, and the self. The only vaguely mainstream movie I can think of which is comparatively philosophically dense would be Cosmopolis, although Linklater's film doesn't have the emotional payoff of Cronenberg's. Fans of A Scanner Darkly (Linklater's 2006 Philip K Dick adaptation) will be familiar with the art technique he uses here. Sometimes it appears to be a simple case of watercolour-style painting over filmed imagery, but as the narrative progresses the pictures become more surreal and nightmarish; so, we're left with a range of styles from impressionist to minimalist to Gilliam-esque animated madness. Obviously Waking Life is hugely indulgent (Linklater even gives himself the climactic speech) but I don't see this as a criticism. The script comes across like a desk drawer full of scribbled ideas because it probably was. But what ideas they are, interrogating notions of memory, identity, and dream logic with skill and clarity. Only on occasions does the writing stray into condescending territory – the suggestion, for example, that we're all sleepwalkers who'll "sell our souls for minimum wage" is clichéd. More often than not, though, the words make us think. Crucially, they make us think for ourselves. Waking Life was made prior to 11 September 2001, yet released in October. "A new world is possible," one character says, oblivious to the cynical new world that was to come. I find there is a sadness in Waking Life's hopefulness about human potential. Toward the end it puts forward the idea that life may be but a dream after death – a moving metaphysical thought that seems somehow too abstract for a post-9/11 world; a world which has seen the Dream turned sour.

braddugg A movie that begins with the line "Dream is Destiny" ought to be compelling and thought provoking and so that's what Waking Life is.It's a hugely compelling and thought provoking movie without doubt and it makes us ask very very poignant questions that we have even forgot asking ourselves or anyone around. As we grow and get lost in the crowd we tend to keep away from the philosophy of life and seek only materialistic things, the money, the name, the prosperity while our purpose of existence and purpose of doing something still remains in question. We tend not to do a few things as we grow up due to fear and few things remain undone because of our laziness which essentially means that we are taking life for granted we are becoming complacent and certain of a tomorrow and even tomorrow we might not do it. That's just a part of this movie where i's said. There are many dialogues and of course this movie is nothing but dialogue driven, acting scope is minimal as it's a love action movie that makes you feel at first a bit bizarre coz it's neither animated nor a normal film and we are not used to this kind of presentation. If anything then it's editing and the animation that I restrict the technical departments to with art direction that will help what has to be there in the scene figuring out and all are apt. But I love the dialogue more than anything else. Be it a conversation of a couple, a interview on TV or in theatre, a monologue in jail, they are so prominent and one after another they keep the mind on the run and if there are questions that will run through the mind as we see it as ' what are we doing?,what are we here for? what is life after all?' I never get even for a split second what is the plot of the movie, what is it's story who are the characters and what are their motives, these things are not important here.It's terribly difficult to comprehend what it feels like after watching this movie except that as and when I watch it I just feel so happy and relieved but still questions keep boggling. I am very grateful to Richard Linklater the writer director of the movie for giving this film. It's one of the best gifts I had. It's 5/5 for the most thought provoking movie ever that I saw. I saw it precisely 5 times all my life and will surely watch many more times as this movie has to be experienced and can't be just seen and forgot, you need to keep asking the questions.