Nakamura, Timothy Ivenz D.

Art Appreciation
BS CpE 2-1

Waking Life: Reaction Paper

The movie “Waking Life” was weird for me since it was very unclear at first. However,
when I got used to the animation and the eccentricity of the movie, I begun to realize that it
contained deeper truths and asked questions that contained principles of philosophy and
questioning of one’s existence and takes on a very interesting tone. It also uses the unrealistic
animations to further emphasize that it is only a dream from the perspective of the persons we
see in the movie.

At first, the protagonist only observes the discussions that are happening around him,
which includes the discussions that were being done by the characters in the film. The
discussions often involve philosophical questions and the characters are engaged in these
discussions are very diverse and includes people like scholars, artists, and normal people that go
on about their daily lives. On my opinion, this symbolizes that everyone has the right to question
what’s going on in their life and question what’s happening around them.

Later in the film, the protagonist participates in the discussion instead of being a passive
onlooker and talks about philosophy with the characters in the film. Furthermore, he also realizes
that he is merely living out a dream that never ends and only wakes up when he experiences
“false awakenings”.

The film also features a lot of philosophical principles that are still relevant up to this
day. At the start of the movie, the girl with the fortune telling origami shows the man that “dream
is destiny”. For me, this was indicative that the whole movie would be focused on dreaming,
especially since the animation and camera angles was shaky at times, which would be the
disorientation that one experiences during dreams. Additionally, there were also mentions of
lucid dreaming during the television scene, where a man talks of how the reality is flawed in the
present setting. Lucid dreaming is again mentioned during the discussion of the three men, where
they mentioned it would be “fun”.

As we can see, dreaming is a recurring theme and topic in the story, however dreaming
may mean two things. It can mean reaching for another goal and it can mean being stuck inside a
sleeping consciousness. The protagonist, being unable to break free from his dream, makes the
best of it and enjoys. This is seen when the first scene of the movie happens again and the
protagonist floats away again as he grabbed a car handle. On my opinion, this shows that he has
begun to enjoy his dream after another false awakening. It can be said that he has “awoken”, thus
the title “Waking Life”.
 All in all, the “Waking Life” is a good movie which touches a lot of philosophical topics,
however it mainly focuses on dream and how to “wake up” from the dreams that shackles a
person. Also, it also uses the animation, transitions and camera angles to recreated a dream-like
state, giving the viewers the feeling that they are indeed dreaming and they must either break
away from this dream or enjoy every moment of it.