Waking Life: filosofia, sociologia, retorica e simbolismo in un sogno che non termina

Waking Life è un film del 2001 diretto da Richard Linklater, che può essere descritto come una collezione di saggi sull'umanità e la ricerca del suo significato. Quindi una ricerca sui simboli, le parole, le teorie filosofiche e poetiche, l'evoluzione, i rapporti, l'arte, la contestazione, la morte, l'odio, il sogno, la coscienza e molto altro. La parte più concreta del film, ovvero quella visiva, è stata resa altrettanto astratta e onirica, grazie a un ripasso di tutte le scene reali con colori e disegni su rotoscopio. Senza dimenticare la colonna sonora composta dai Tango Tosca Orchestra.

Come in My Dinner With Andre, è meglio non fare una recensione di Waking Life, ma soltanto citarne i dialoghi per trasmetterne parte delle tematiche, che poi gli eventuali spettatori potranno comprendere o fraintendere. Uno dei miei film preferiti di sempre.

There are two kinds of sufferers in this world: those who suffer from a lack of life and those who suffer from an overabundance of life. I've always found myself in the second category. When you come to think of it, almost all human behavior and activity is not essentially any different from animal behavior. The most advanced technologies and craftsmanship bring us, at best, up to the super-chimpanzee level. Actually, the gap between, say, Plato or Nietzsche and the average human is greater than the gap between that chimpanzee and the average human. The realm of the real spirit, the true artist, the saint, the philosopher, is rarely achieved. Why so few? Why is world history and evolution not stories of progress but rather this endless and futile addition of zeroes. No greater values have developed. Hell, the Greeks 3,000 years ago were just as advanced as we are. So what are these barriers that keep people from reaching anywhere near their real potential? The answer to that can be found in another question, and that's this: Which is the most universal human characteristic - fear or laziness?

Depression, strife, riots, murder, all this dread. We're irresistibly drawn to that almost orgiastic state created out of death and destruction. It's in all of us. We revel in it. Sure, the media tries to put a sad face on these things, painting them up as great human tragedies. But we all know the function of the media has never been to eliminate the evils of the world, no. Their job is to persuade us to accept those evils and get used to living with them. The powers that be want us to be passive observers. Hey, you got a match? And they haven't given us any other options outside the occasional, purely symbolic, participatory act of voting. You want the puppet on the right or the puppet on the left? I feel that the time has come to project my own inadequacies and dissatisfactions into the sociopolitical and scientific schemes, let my own lack of a voice be heard.

Haven't seen too many around lately. Things have been tough lately for dreamers. They say dreaming's dead, that no one does it anymore. It's not dead, it's just been forgotten. Removed from our language. No one teaches it so no one knows it exists. The dreamer is banished to obscurity. Well I'm trying to change all that, and I hope you are too. By dreaming every day. Dreaming with our hands and dreaming with our minds. Our planet is facing the greatest problems it's ever faced. Ever. So whatever you do, don't be bored. This is absolutely the most exciting time we could have possibly hoped to be alive. And things are just starting.