We have back to Richard Linklater, this time via Netflix with the nostalgic ‘Apollo 10½: A Space Childhood’, where he reviews his childhood from the rotoscope animation technique. It is not the first time that he has used this technique to make one of his films. Moreover, this is the third, and can almost be called main sponsor of this type of animation at a popular level.
Linklater has explained in the past that he loves the “dreamlike” quality that this animation brings to the image. It makes sense to apply it to try to visually develop the diffusion of memories of childhood, which are almost confused with dreams, or in a movie like ‘waking life’, where the main idea lies in the concept of “the dream is destiny”. It is also interesting as a reflection of a disturbing and confusing, almost nightmarish reality, as he tried to do in what we could consider his best rotoscopic work: ‘A Scanner Darkly (A look at the dark)’, available on HBO Max.
hypervigilance and schizophrenia
The whole project arises from the suggestive work of Philip K Dickwhich had long drawn the attention of filmmakers interested in the diffuse states of mind and body as Terry Gilliam, David Cronenberg either charlie kaufman. It never materialized under any of those names, although the recent successes of Dick adaptations like ‘Minority Report’ and ‘Paycheck’ revived interest in ‘Scanner Darkly’.
Linklater saw here an opportunity to do something different from his other more relaxed works in his vital reflections. He was initially attached to an adaptation of ‘Ubik’, although it was ‘Scanner Darkly’ that he was really calling it, and he felt that his newfound love of rotoscoped animation could come in handy here. He had a hard time convincing Dick’s heiresses, who they did not see clearly to make an adaptation “of cartoons”but managed to sell them on the need to do more adult-focused animation projects.
The director made efforts to link the content of the novel to the present, written by Dick in full discontent with the authoritarian government of Richard Nixon together with the Author’s personal experiences with schizophrenia and drug abuse. Linklater uses the paranoia due to the hypervigilance of the era of George Bush Jr. as a framework, also introducing his failure in the fight against psychoactive drugs (at that time the opioid crisis had broken out and Purdue Pharma was in legal proceedings for its commercialization of OxyContin).
A stimulating work of animation for adults
All this is reflected in a film with a cloudy and distressing atmosphere, in which an individual (Keanu Reeves) participates in this state of government hypervigilanceand the only way he can cope is with the abuse of a popular drug that helps him split his psyche.
This even leads him to doubt -perhaps rightly so- his entire environment, his friendships and personal relationships. The diffusion that the animated technique brings to the image helps convey that nightmarish and reality-questioning feeling.
Here we can find a dark and deep film, although does not give up Dick’s peculiar humor, which the director manages to insert very cleverly, like that unexpected cameo from conspiracy theorist Alex Jones whom he saw as “pretty funny”. It’s a tricky balance, but Linklater keeps the tone from getting out of hand, managing in the process one of his most unique and thought-provoking films.