You know, they say that dreams are real only as long as they last. Couldn't you say the same thing about life?
[~Waking Life]
I watch a movie today. The one, I’ve bought after reading intriguing reference to it in someone’s diary and then looked up more about it on the net. The movie is relatively old – of 2001 and it is one of a kind that you would call – cult movie. The Guardian wrote: “…who needs class B drugs when you’ve got this film?” The title, as you might’ve guessed already – Waking Life.
Technically the film is just a set of talks the leading character has with various people he meets while travelling through his own dreams…he walks around listening to everyone, wondering what’s going on and eventually realizes he's in a lucid dream that he cannot wake from…all that being said to him, essentially are conceptions of his own mind being verbalized by someone else…In all ways the movie is rather weird. It’s an animation, though looks like it’s been shot with real actors, but then “digitally animated” into cartoon. Perhaps, many have seen this movie ages ago and I was the only one who missed it out, but to me this was somewhat of a cultural “shock”. Although the theories mentioned in it did sound rather familiar, in Carlos Castaneda style. The main idea is a lucid dream. (Lucid dreaming essentially means dreaming while knowing that you are dreaming.) That’s what the guy in a movie experiences. Basically, every time he goes awaken from his dream, he found that he’s awakening into another one. I must say, if this would’ve happened to me, I would be all freaked out. And the ending of the movie is rather pessimistic, as he literally flies away into yet another dream of his…
But of course, the main treasures of the movie are those theories about consciousness, life, and meaning, that being discussed by characters, that Wiley Wiggins meets along (the main character, and it is so weird that this name “accidentally” sounds like the name of my favourite book character – Andrew Wiggin, Speaker For The Dead)…I don’t know how many times of watching will be needed until I understand the meaning of each little philosophical gem completely (good thing, it’s on DVD, so I can re-play separate chapters)… But even from the first try it looks like such a gigantic pile of ideas, I am impressed by the scale, and frankly, even lost a little in front of so many things to digest…and I don’t know yet, if I like the movie. It’s kind of feels like an enormous task in hand.
Time to roll up the sleeves and start thinking!
Woman: What are you writing?
Writer: A novel.
Woman: What's the story?
Writer: There's no story. It's just people, gestures, moments, bits of rapture, fleeting emotions. In short, the greatest stories ever told.
Woman: Are you in the story?
Writer: I don't think so. But then, I'm kind of reading it, then writing it.
[~Waking Life]
[~Waking Life]
I watch a movie today. The one, I’ve bought after reading intriguing reference to it in someone’s diary and then looked up more about it on the net. The movie is relatively old – of 2001 and it is one of a kind that you would call – cult movie. The Guardian wrote: “…who needs class B drugs when you’ve got this film?” The title, as you might’ve guessed already – Waking Life.
Technically the film is just a set of talks the leading character has with various people he meets while travelling through his own dreams…he walks around listening to everyone, wondering what’s going on and eventually realizes he's in a lucid dream that he cannot wake from…all that being said to him, essentially are conceptions of his own mind being verbalized by someone else…In all ways the movie is rather weird. It’s an animation, though looks like it’s been shot with real actors, but then “digitally animated” into cartoon. Perhaps, many have seen this movie ages ago and I was the only one who missed it out, but to me this was somewhat of a cultural “shock”. Although the theories mentioned in it did sound rather familiar, in Carlos Castaneda style. The main idea is a lucid dream. (Lucid dreaming essentially means dreaming while knowing that you are dreaming.) That’s what the guy in a movie experiences. Basically, every time he goes awaken from his dream, he found that he’s awakening into another one. I must say, if this would’ve happened to me, I would be all freaked out. And the ending of the movie is rather pessimistic, as he literally flies away into yet another dream of his…
But of course, the main treasures of the movie are those theories about consciousness, life, and meaning, that being discussed by characters, that Wiley Wiggins meets along (the main character, and it is so weird that this name “accidentally” sounds like the name of my favourite book character – Andrew Wiggin, Speaker For The Dead)…I don’t know how many times of watching will be needed until I understand the meaning of each little philosophical gem completely (good thing, it’s on DVD, so I can re-play separate chapters)… But even from the first try it looks like such a gigantic pile of ideas, I am impressed by the scale, and frankly, even lost a little in front of so many things to digest…and I don’t know yet, if I like the movie. It’s kind of feels like an enormous task in hand.
Time to roll up the sleeves and start thinking!
Woman: What are you writing?
Writer: A novel.
Woman: What's the story?
Writer: There's no story. It's just people, gestures, moments, bits of rapture, fleeting emotions. In short, the greatest stories ever told.
Woman: Are you in the story?
Writer: I don't think so. But then, I'm kind of reading it, then writing it.
[~Waking Life]