My friend Kristen says that the movie A Scanner Darkly is uber-fantastic. It hasn’t opened in Japan yet, so in the meantime I’m satisfying myself with the first 24 minutes of the film, viewable at IGN.
“I came back for my own purposes,” said the Time Traveler, looking around my booklined study. “I chose you to talk to because it was . . . convenient. And I don’t want you to do a goddamned thing. There’s nothing you can do. But relax . . . we’re not going to be talking about personal things. Such as, say, the year, day, and hour of your death. I don’t even know that sort of trivial information, although I could look it up quickly enough. You can release that white-knuckled grip you have on the edge of your desk.” I tried to relax. “What do you want to talk about?” I said. “The Century War,” said the Time Traveler. I blinked and tried to remember some history. “You mean the Hundred Year War? Fifteenth Century? Fourteenth? Sometime around there. Between . . . France and England? Henry V? Kenneth Branagh? Or was it . . .” “I mean the Century War with Islam,” interrupted the Time Traveler. “Your future. Everyone’s.” He was no longer smiling. Without asking, or offering to pour me any, he ...
Uber-fantastic is quite right. It's like "Waking Life" but with an actual plot and a damned good one at that. I recommend getting it on DVD just for the fantastic visuals alone.
ReplyDeleteOh, and speaking of great new American Sci-Fi, 'Children of Men' kicks some major booty. Makes Blade Runner seem like a Disney film in parts. I was quite pleasantly surprised.
Glad to hear another confirming opinion. I will probably buy the DVD as you suggest, because I agree that the visuals are just stunning! It took 500 hours to make each minute of animation; I'm assuming they're factoring a lot of man-hours including the live-action shoot to come up with that dramatic number. I mean - golly - that's a lot of rotoscoping.
ReplyDeleteWhat would be neat to see is this animation technique, this visual style performed on the live action performers, and then cel-shaded computer-generated sets. Whoooo.