Films/DVD Asylum

Posted by clarkjohnsen (R) on July 10, 2006 at 09:38:48

The reviews I noticed ranged from C- to three stars. Now I can see both points of view.

If Linklater rotoscoping is your only thing, Waking Life was a better movie.

If waiting for a payoff is your only thing, then definitely Darkly.

If talkiness is your thing, it's Darkly again -- but not by a long shot.

If Robert Downey Jr. at his feyest is your thing... well, he wasn't in Life but he's truly great in Scanner.

If Keanu Reeves *isn't* your thing, this one will surprise you; he's great too. So is Wynona Ryder.

And now we come to Philip K. Dick.

Personally I consider his Radio Free Albemuth one of the handful of Reality Books on my shelf; A Scanner Darkly, while not ascending to that level nevertheless has it moments, with a true paranoid's paranoia realized in the final plot twist about his drug-disintegrated protagonist (Reeves). Just two words to remember: Blue flowers.

However, I did not find the two sides of his brain-split very well handled, leading to a static rather than a dynamic relationship there, with each's awareness of the other unexamined -- although I also can't see what might have been done to improve matters.

Dick was not however much of a prose stylist (I even embarked on line-editing my copy of the book) while Linklater's movie is very stylish indeed. The result: The book has more raw power, but if you don't want to go there, the film is fine if you can accept its talkitiveness.

clark