Category: Action / Adventure - Drama - Movie - Science Fiction
Availability: 19 December 2006
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DVD A Scanner Darkly (Widescreen Edition)
How well you respond to Richard Linklater's A Scanner Darkly depends on how much you know about the life and work of celebrated science fiction writer Philip K. Dick. While it qualifies as a faithful adaptation of Dick's semiautobiographical 1977 novel about the perils of drug abuse, Big Brother-like surveillance and rampant paranoia in a very near future ("seven years from now"), this is still very much a Linklater film, and those two qualities don't always connect effectively. The creepy potency of Dick's premise remains: The drug war's been lost, citizens are kept under rigid surveillance by holographic scanning recorders, and a schizoid addict named Bob Arctor (Keanu Reeves) is facing an identity crisis he's not even aware of: Due to his voluminous intake of the highly addictive psychotropic drug Substance D, Arctor's brain has been split in two, each hemisphere functioning separately. So he doesn't know that he's also Agent Fred, an undercover agent assigned to infiltrate Arctor's circle of friends (played by Woody Harrelson, Winona Ryder, Rory Cochrane, and Robert Downey, Jr.) to track down the secret source of Substance D. As he wears a "scramble suit" that constantly shifts identities and renders Agent Fred/Arctor into "the ultimate everyman," Dick's drug-addled antihero must come to grips with a society where, as the movie's tag-line makes clear, "everything is not going to be OK."
While it's virtually guaranteed to achieve some kind of cult status, A Scanner Darkly lacks the paranoid intensity of Dick's novel, and Linklater's established penchant for loose and loopy dialogue doesn't always work here, with an emphasis on drug-culture humor instead of the panicked anxiety that Dick's novel conveys. As for the use of "interpolated rotoscoping"--the technique used to apply shifting, highly stylized animation over conventional live-action footage--it's purely a matter of personal preference. The film's look is appropriate to Dick's dark, cautionary story about the high price of addiction, but it also robs performances of nuance and turns the seriousness of Dick's story into... well, a cartoon. Opinions will differ, but A Scanner Darkly is definitely worth a look--or two, if the mind-rattling plot doesn't sink in the first time around. --Jeff Shannon
Review(s): DVD A Scanner Darkly (Widescreen Edition)
A Conversation Filim
My favorite Philip K. Dick adaptation is Blade Runner. It's one of those adaptations that should never have worked. Ridley Scott's Deckard has little to do with the book's Deckard, only the skeletal outline of the plot is similar, and many of the assumptions and theories of the book are actually countered by the film. In the book the replicants lack any empathy towards other creatures and are never given a chance at redemption, while in the film the replicants are built without empathy but are given a chance to obtain it. What makes the film work is because it still understands the themes of the book even if it does not agree with them. That and because it's the most visually unique film...well, perhaps ever.
A Scanner Darkly is the opposite of Blade Runner in that it is the most faithful Philip K. Dick adaptation...well, perhaps ever. This isn't a film that takes Philip K. Dick's ideas and dresses them up in some inane thriller, this is a Philip K. Dick book on the screen. The plot is largely absent from much of the film. Instead it focuses on the drugged out characters, and anyone who's hung out around the perpetually stoned will recognize one or two of these stoner archetypes. Of particular note is Robert Downey Jr. doing another great character since his rehab. What the hell Downey, I thought all creativity was supposed to be used up by the time you go through rehab? It's only until the second half of the movie that the plot twists start a-flyin'. If, like me, you've already read the book, then you'll want to go for the great character interaction, already on the page, brought to life by the aforementioned Downey, Woody Harrelson, and Rory Cochrane (who I was unfamiliar with, but does a great job at portraying a paranoid, nerve frayed druggie). You'll also want to check out the great use of rotoscoping. I was surprised to learn a few months back that this was the same technique used in those 1940 Superman cartoon shorts. I guess everything old is new.
There are a few tweaks to the story line that make it slightly more relevant in today's world, but I was surprised how little needed to be changed for Dick's social commentary to shine through. It's interesting how time tested political maneuverings remain relevent. The use of an enemy to annex more power is the oldest trick in the book, but people keep on falling for it. Again and again governments will sing the refrain of protection to eat away at the Bill of Rights. In Dick's time it was protection against communism and the drug war. The drug war has been a good standby for years but it has recently been eclipsed by the war on terror. The drug war, terrorism, communism, Eurasia, Eastasia - governments will always create an enemy to make a power grab. Scanner paints a picture of a world where surveillance is so prevalent that the almost humorous situation of spying on yourself arises. Of course, one can ask the question about how many liberties we can give up to save "America" until we have actually destroyed the great experimental ideal of America our founding fathers hoped to create.
As with most Philip K. Dick, the shifting nature of reality is examined, but in Scanner this reality isn't necessarily metaphysical as it is perceived (potential spoiler alert). Bob Arctor (Keanu Reeves) volunteers to go undercover in order to find the higher up drug dealers, but is unaware that his superiors have a second undercover operation in mind. While he did volunteer in a broad sense for undercover anti-drug work, and that is still what his superiors are using him for (albeit not in a way he expected), he did not volunteer specifically for the dehumanizing fate that would accompany this second undercover drug scheme. I am reminded of the soldiers sent to Iraq under the assumption that Saddam was related to 9/11 (as asserted by the President on several occasions and, interesting enough, repeated by commanders at Abu Graib prisons). However, once they arrived in Iraq the reasons for going there were switched around. There were no WMDs or 9/11 connection, and instead they realize they are there for two major reasons: oil and a naïve neo-conservative view of the world that believed toppling Saddam would make democracy flourish and solve the Middle East's problems. (We can all see how that is turning out). Scanner portrays how easy it is for politicians to switch reality on the public once they have what they want.
Perhaps the next question is whether or not people even recognize that they were sold one war and given another. We live in a world where we're subject to a constant barrage of images everyday, and it means little to our mindset to go from a news anchor's somber description of an Iraq massacre to a commercial about Depends. If our minds can make these extreme leaps, perhaps it's not too difficult to think that what we believe one minute does not have to coincide with what we believe the next minute. To push the Iraq analogy, many people have no problem that they shouted WMDs at the top of their lungs before the war and democratization after the war without skipping a beat, and even claiming that democratization was their reason we should invade Iraq to begin with. It's only a matter of time before people start claiming that the only way to protect civil liberties is to destroy them.
As you can see, A Scanner Darkly is one of those films you go and see late at night with a few of your friends, and then go get some coffee afterwards to talk about it. I guarantee you the conversation will take you places you didn't think it would. It is one of the great conversation films of...well, perhaps ever.
very faithful
This movie is the most faithful adaptation of a PKD story out there (book or short story). That being said, if you didn't like the book (or don't have the patience to read the book in the first place), you will not like the movie. It is *that* faithful.
It's a dark, sad, story, and combined the the aforementioned faithfulness, it probably does not have much appeal to a mainstream audience. It is decidedly not one of those "sort of inspired by a PKD story" action movies. If you think that's a bad thing, then skip this one. If you think that's a good thing, as I do, then be sure to check it out.
A mixed bag
I guess the people that review this film are mainly the ones that like this type of genre and hence will bias more toward favorable reviews (this is true of most non mainstream stuff I think). Bias aside, the movie is revolutionary in its technique of artisticially portrayal of reality. I guess if you were a smart enough, you would pick up on the ironies and subtleness of the film - whether this is intentional or not I do not know. The film suffers from a bit of overacting on certain members (I won't name them, but it is obvious) of the cast, and the film simply does not exploit the medium of the drawing over the film enough to justify it in the first place. I would have enjoyed this film, just as much for example.. if it had not been painted over. If they paint it over, they might as well exploit it more - like putting in more hallucinegetic visuals, or whatever. Reasons for owning this is that is is unique, some of the dialogue is good, and of course it has Winona Ryder in it (if you are a Winona fan).
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