Showing @ Cineworld, Glasgow until Wed 26 Feb
Ari Folman / Israel/Germany/France/Belgium/Poland/Luxembourg / 2013 / 123 mins
Based on Stanislaw Lem’s 1971 sci-fi novel The Futurological Congress, Ari Folman’s follow up to his 2008 animated documentary Waltz with Bashir, is as beautiful as it is befuddling. Coerced by an insidious studio executive, actress Robin Wright (playing herself) is ‘scanned’ – a process that digitally records her body and emotions, enabling Miramount to produce movies without the need for a physical thespian. Twenty years later, Robin attends Miramount’s Futurological Congress, where the vogue habit is to enter into a chemically induced animated hallucination, allowing people to be whatever they like rather than face reality.
Beginning as a recognisable look into the frustrations of aging in an industry fixated on superficial appearance, it soon descends into a vivid quasi-reality that makes critical observations about our supposed computer-supported utopian future and the erosion of identity through technological dependence. Robin’s early image as the “all American girl”, deeply contrasts to Miramount’s later bizarre statement of turning her into a substance ‘that can be eaten’. This degradation of individualism is pertinent to a culture that’s increasingly reliant on online profiles, avatars and handles. Despite the theme rich narrative providing an enthralling conversation on contemporary society, the cognitive subject matter sometimes suffers from becoming a little convoluted in its multilayered structuring. A fantastical and visually stupefying production that paints existentialism with a wonderfully colourful palette.