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Scope this out
Saw "Through a Scanner Darkly". I think I had seen something about it when it was being made, due to the fact that it's the first feature-length film in... maybe ever... to use rotoscoping almost continuously.
It's a Philip K. Dick story, and feels like it may be the one truest to the written word that I've seen. It certainly had his style in spades -- "Bladerunner" was a good movie, but it barely touched the underlying currents that he tends to have. (Not to mention that it, like all the others I've seen, grabbed a single idea and ran with it, rather than trying to actually do the book.)
"Scanner" watched like his books read. Disjointed sometimes, edgy, a little disturbing in events and implications. The plot, and what people do to each other, is gently horrific, showing crimes against fellow man without any fanfare or sign that says "Isn't this awful?" They're presented as commonplace, unremarkable. That's what makes him so disturbing.
The rotoscoping was a good touch. It made everything move a little strangely; lines didn't stay put, shadows shifted, furniture drifted when you saw it out of the corner of your eye. It was a drug-trip sort of effect, which was wholly appropriate. It was somewhere between real and not-real, film and animation, so that it was hard to say where one ended and the other began. I think Dick would have liked it.
It's a good movie. Quite a bit of swearing at points (mentally unstable characters can do that sometimes), nudity, a bit of sex. Nothing shocking for the bohemian crew I know, but the neighbor might not appreciate having her 10-year old taken to it. It is worth seeing.
It's a Philip K. Dick story, and feels like it may be the one truest to the written word that I've seen. It certainly had his style in spades -- "Bladerunner" was a good movie, but it barely touched the underlying currents that he tends to have. (Not to mention that it, like all the others I've seen, grabbed a single idea and ran with it, rather than trying to actually do the book.)
"Scanner" watched like his books read. Disjointed sometimes, edgy, a little disturbing in events and implications. The plot, and what people do to each other, is gently horrific, showing crimes against fellow man without any fanfare or sign that says "Isn't this awful?" They're presented as commonplace, unremarkable. That's what makes him so disturbing.
The rotoscoping was a good touch. It made everything move a little strangely; lines didn't stay put, shadows shifted, furniture drifted when you saw it out of the corner of your eye. It was a drug-trip sort of effect, which was wholly appropriate. It was somewhere between real and not-real, film and animation, so that it was hard to say where one ended and the other began. I think Dick would have liked it.
It's a good movie. Quite a bit of swearing at points (mentally unstable characters can do that sometimes), nudity, a bit of sex. Nothing shocking for the bohemian crew I know, but the neighbor might not appreciate having her 10-year old taken to it. It is worth seeing.