Waking Life

Waking Life (USA, 2001, Richard Linklater, director) is a groundbreaking film. Using a form of rotoscoping to animate over digital video footage, every frame of this film is beautiful, creating the perfect setting, a dream world, where the main character never knows if he is asleep or awake. Lots of philosophical musings, which occasionally grate, making it difficult to concentrate on both the visuals and the talk at the same time, but overall a film that deserves several viewings. 9/10

The Son’s Room

The film festival has been disrupted the past few days and two of my screenings have been cancelled or rescheduled, but tonight I saw a film for the first time since Monday night. How fitting that it was The Son’s Room (Italy, 2001, Nanni Moretti, director), a quietly moving film about grief. The anguish that this family experiences in the film is being played out thousands of times over in the United States, Canada, and other countries right now, and collectively as well. It was good to be sad with a lot of people tonight, and to realize that every single person who perished in New York, or in Washington, or in Pennsylvania has people who love them very much, and who are grieving. Impossible for me to “grade” this one, since my reactions are as much due to real life right now as anything in the film.