Waking Life

2001 , Animated 2001 , Animation , Documentary , Drama , English , United States ,

Waking Life is a 2001 American adult animated docufiction/drama film, directed by Richard Linklater. It was distributed by Fox Searchlight Pictures and it was the first (and only so far) animated film released by Fox Searchlight Pictures. The film explores a wide range of philosophical issues including the nature of reality, dreams, consciousness, the meaning of life, free will, and existentialism.

Release date: October 19, 2001 (USA)
Director: Richard Linklater
Screenplay: Richard Linklater
Language: English
MPAA rating: R

Starring (Cast): The film's voice cast Eamonn Healy, Timothy "Speed" Levitch, Adam Goldberg, Nicky Katt, Steven Soderbergh, Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy, Steven Prince, Caveh Zahedi, Otto Hofmann, Richard Linklater, Aklilu Gebrewold, David Martinez (filmmaker), Louis H. Mackey, David Sosa, Alex Jones, Robert C. Solomon, Kim Krizan.

Storyline: Waking Life is about an unnamed young man living an ethereal existence that lacks transitions between everyday events and that eventually progresses toward an existential crisis. For most of the film he observes quietly but later participates actively in philosophical discussions involving other characters—ranging from quirky scholars and artists to everyday restaurant-goers and friends—about such issues as metaphysics, free will, social philosophy, and the meaning of life. Other scenes do not even include the protagonist's presence, but rather, focus on a random isolated person, group of people, or couple engaging in such topics from a disembodied perspective. Along the way, the film touches also upon existentialism, situationist politics, posthumanity, the film theory of André Bazin, and lucid dreaming, and makes references to various celebrated intellectual and literary figures by name.

Gradually, the protagonist begins to realize that he is living out a perpetual dream, broken up only by occasional false awakenings. So far he is mostly a passive onlooker, though this changes during a chat with a passing woman who suddenly approaches him. After she greets him and shares her creative ideas with him, he reminds himself that she is a figment of his own dreaming imagination. Afterwards, he starts to converse more openly with other dream characters, but he begins to despair about being trapped in a dream.