Just what is the deal with Keanu Reeves's brain?
Tuesday, July 11th, 2006 02:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
serai.
A Scanner Darkly
I'm serious. Every science fiction film this guy has done has had the same motif: Somebody is messing with his brain. Have you noticed that? They're either overloading his synapses, or sticking metal spikes in his skull, or splitting his brain in half. More than one critic has commented wryly on this, but it's starting to look deliberate to me. He simply can't be ignorant of the irony there.
A Scanner Darkly is based on a book by Philip K. Dick, a man who did not have a happy life, and the story is a tribute to friends he has lost through drug addiction. It involves an cop undercover in The Santa Cruz House I Lived In (Spike lived there too), wherein also live his two roommates. All of them are users of Substance D, a drug whose effects still aren't clear to me. Apparently the combination of the drug with the nature of the assignment eventually cause the afore-mentioned brain-splitting, and things get weird. Not that they haven't been weird already.
I never saw Waking Life, Richard Linklater's previous film made with rotoscoping techniques. I've been wary of it because from what I understood of the story, the animation didn't sound necessary. That probably doesn't make sense, but anyway I didn't see it. But here, the technique is startlingly effective. At first, the animation seems clever and rather pretty, which is good because what you're actually looking at is kind of pathetic and sordid. But I found that after about twenty minuates, I lost the sense of the movie as an animation, and my brain began to see the rotoscoping as the effects of psilocybin or LSD. Because all of the movements are painted onto the movements of a real actor, it never feels like a cartoon, but like the real world seen while very, very stoned.
What I said above about Phil Dick and this story makes it sound somber, but it really isn't. This is at times a really funny movie, mainly because of Robert Downey Jr. and Woody Harrelson, who play the roommates. Downey's rapid-fire, convoluted arias of pseudo-lore and conspiracy theory and Harrelson's stoner who goes off now and then to great effect, are both things of beauty. Real wit doesn't come around often in the movies, but it is here.
Now I have a great fondness for Keanu Reeves, but I came to my senses about the guy a long time ago. Nobody is ever going to call him a great actor. The most he can hope for is that people will say "he's great in this film". It happens now and then - Bill and Ted, Speed, The Matrix, The Gift (he actually got buzz on that one) - mostly through a felicitous combination of his chosen mien and the nature of the character. You could say that about any actor, but Keanu's not a chameleon; the role has to be just right for him.
I can honestly say I thought he was really good in this movie. For one thing, he does stunned and disbelieving really well, and Arctor spends a lot of his time thinking WTF?? Second, he really does well with the breakdown scenes, when the drug turns bad on him and the nightmare really starts. And let's face it, the guy will always sound like a stoner.
There's not really much else I can say that wouldn't spoil the film. It's accomplished, quick-witted, sharp. Beautiful to watch. Funny, yet not upbeat. Not quite a black comedy, because its intention is deadly serious. I can honestly say it's a unique film. If the subject matter doesn't put you off, do see it. It's the kind of story that'll stick in your head for days.
Just ask Keanu.
A Scanner Darkly
I'm serious. Every science fiction film this guy has done has had the same motif: Somebody is messing with his brain. Have you noticed that? They're either overloading his synapses, or sticking metal spikes in his skull, or splitting his brain in half. More than one critic has commented wryly on this, but it's starting to look deliberate to me. He simply can't be ignorant of the irony there.
A Scanner Darkly is based on a book by Philip K. Dick, a man who did not have a happy life, and the story is a tribute to friends he has lost through drug addiction. It involves an cop undercover in The Santa Cruz House I Lived In (Spike lived there too), wherein also live his two roommates. All of them are users of Substance D, a drug whose effects still aren't clear to me. Apparently the combination of the drug with the nature of the assignment eventually cause the afore-mentioned brain-splitting, and things get weird. Not that they haven't been weird already.
I never saw Waking Life, Richard Linklater's previous film made with rotoscoping techniques. I've been wary of it because from what I understood of the story, the animation didn't sound necessary. That probably doesn't make sense, but anyway I didn't see it. But here, the technique is startlingly effective. At first, the animation seems clever and rather pretty, which is good because what you're actually looking at is kind of pathetic and sordid. But I found that after about twenty minuates, I lost the sense of the movie as an animation, and my brain began to see the rotoscoping as the effects of psilocybin or LSD. Because all of the movements are painted onto the movements of a real actor, it never feels like a cartoon, but like the real world seen while very, very stoned.
What I said above about Phil Dick and this story makes it sound somber, but it really isn't. This is at times a really funny movie, mainly because of Robert Downey Jr. and Woody Harrelson, who play the roommates. Downey's rapid-fire, convoluted arias of pseudo-lore and conspiracy theory and Harrelson's stoner who goes off now and then to great effect, are both things of beauty. Real wit doesn't come around often in the movies, but it is here.
Now I have a great fondness for Keanu Reeves, but I came to my senses about the guy a long time ago. Nobody is ever going to call him a great actor. The most he can hope for is that people will say "he's great in this film". It happens now and then - Bill and Ted, Speed, The Matrix, The Gift (he actually got buzz on that one) - mostly through a felicitous combination of his chosen mien and the nature of the character. You could say that about any actor, but Keanu's not a chameleon; the role has to be just right for him.
I can honestly say I thought he was really good in this movie. For one thing, he does stunned and disbelieving really well, and Arctor spends a lot of his time thinking WTF?? Second, he really does well with the breakdown scenes, when the drug turns bad on him and the nightmare really starts. And let's face it, the guy will always sound like a stoner.
There's not really much else I can say that wouldn't spoil the film. It's accomplished, quick-witted, sharp. Beautiful to watch. Funny, yet not upbeat. Not quite a black comedy, because its intention is deadly serious. I can honestly say it's a unique film. If the subject matter doesn't put you off, do see it. It's the kind of story that'll stick in your head for days.
Just ask Keanu.
