Waking Life

From director Richard Linklater, who created the independent breakout films Slacker and Dazed and Confused, comes a digital video effort that has animated in a process called interpolated rotoscoping, brought to life by 31 animation artists who drew over live-action footage to create a dream-like state that is both real and surreal. The director works in a free-associative manner much like in Slacker and opens on a young vagabond arriving at a town by train. After a ride in an odd car-boat, he meets up with a professor who voices his deep philosophical leanings. The young man stumbles upon more figures that resemble the media, evolution, and even characters out of other Linklater features, including Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy, whose characters in Before Sunrise make an appearance, as well as director Steven Soderbergh, who relates an anecdote about Louis Malle telling Billy Wilder that his new film "is like a dream." A non-narrative piece that flows like a fever dream, Waking Life features voicework by over 70 actors, including Wiley Wiggins, Adam Goldberg, and Nicky Katt.