色彩

       有些道理就是很难传播——因为人们只传递自己认同的东西。有些道理就是不大可能被大多数人认同，于是，即便它再有道理，再怎么有用，也不是很容易传播。
       所以这个电影也被埋没，因为它涉及的观点太多太泛乱，每个人滔滔不绝，像拿着一大桶水对着男主角泼洒着他们的论点，但论据却很少，这样的谈话很难让局外的人产生认同感。大多数人只不过看着整部电影里多数是不太感兴趣的对白，看完就完全忘记，继续他们半梦半醒的人生。
       但是抛开观点不算，电影的表现手法真的打动了我。导演的这个想法是开创性的，真希望会有新的作品能向这个电影致敬，这个手法真的值得再用。

电影很有趣
关于社会的人类的人性的哲学思考的语言流尽管内容平庸，和男主身处其中的梦一样有水的流动质感。
我想这个电影并不是想借以梦的形式传达严肃的哲学思考，反而是脱出理性思辨的限制后，语言的无意识特性，片中大段大段对话语法正确，风格流畅，但是细纠就会发现其实这些话架空于事实和逻辑上，语言的内容与正在发生的事情之间产生互文，互为所指，就像两滴颜料融合在水中。
关于这一点，最明显的是男主在电影院看电影的一段。电影的内容是两个人在讨论电影，电影的神圣性瞬间，有点像两个说相声的人，一个逗哏一个捧哏，逗哏的人不断将对话引向电影的叙事性，瞬间的神圣，而在他的语言之下，两个人所构成的电影画面正好成为非常恰当的说明，最后两个人在镜头前表演了这一神圣瞬间，语言与画面融合为一。
通篇男主遇到的所有人，听到和说出的所有语言，发生的所有事件都具有梦的这一不受理性控制的现实结构之下的超现实性，在每一个微妙不引起注意的地方形成断裂和超越的逻辑结构。
由此产生的梦境内容虚假与现实性的交互其实也可以类推到电影剧本写作中，即情节超越于故事框架而与写作行为或者拍摄的创作行为本身发生关系。

本来就从早到晚累了一天，看完Waking Life更是连脑子都累晕了。

冲着Ethan Hawke 和 Julie Delpy 才一直找这部电影，一买回来就迫不及待要看，没想到是动画片，更没想到是我非常不喜欢的风格的动画片，忍着看了几眼，实在看不下去，而且根本就看不到Ethan Hawke 和Julie Delpy 的影子，当时那个失望哦。今天突然很不甘心又重拾起来，因为豆瓣上的评价都是很好的，没理由那么难看呀。结果基本上是用快进在看，看到对白有点意思才停下来，因为动画画面晃来晃去的基本上都差不多，之所以晃因为表现的是梦境，说实话看久了头都会晕。结果是有意思的对白越来越多，后来就都能慢慢的看了。看完之后觉得很惊讶，没想到拍过那么浪漫的Before Sunrise和Before Sunset的导演会拍出这样严肃的电影，而且是用动画。明明说的是一个人的醒不过来的梦境，却又每一句话都在说现实。

其中说到一个人如何能在梦中知道自己是在做梦，可以抓住几个迹象，比如去关一盏灯，一直关不上，又比如自己在飞，再比如一直看不清钟表上的时间，当然这迹象大概都会因人而异。这阵子正读南怀谨讲的圆觉经，说到人要在梦中知道自己在做梦是非常难的。又说“一般人所讲人生如梦，那是在痛苦烦恼时偶尔的感叹而已，并没有真把人生当做是梦。”而电影里则说：dreams are real only as long as they last.
              Can't you say the same thing about life?

 

这是一部如果能坚持看完就一定会想很多的电影，而且也不会因为画面难看就给它打低分。除非在看的时候昏昏欲睡以致真的睡着。最后总算在花絮里看到一段真人出演版，感觉像赚到了。其实Ethan Hawke 和 Julie Delpy 演的那一段还是很意思的，虽然很短，录全文如下：

(A couple are in bed talking -- Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke)

I keep thinking about something you said.

Something I said?

Yeah. About how you often feel like you're observing your life from the perspective of an old woman about to die. You remember that?

Yeah. I still feel that way sometimes. Like I'm looking back on my life. Like my waking life is her memories.

Exactly. I heard that Tim Leary said as he was dying that he was looking forward to the moment when his body was dead but his brain was still alive. You know they say that there's still six to twelve minutes of brain activity after everything else is shutdown. And a second of dream consciousness, right, well, that's infinitely longer than a waking second. You know what I'm saying?

Oh, yeah, definitely. For example, I wake up and it is 10:12, and then I go back to sleep and I have those long, intricate, beautiful dreams that seem to last for hours, and then I wake up and it's ... 10:13.

Yeah, exactly. So then six to twelve minutes of brain activity, I mean, that could be your whole life. I mean, you are that woman looking back over everything.

Okay, so what if I am? Then what would you be in all that?

Whatever I am right now. I mean, yeah, maybe I only exist in your mind. I'm still just as real as anything else.

Yeah. I've been thinking also about something you said.

What's that?

Just about reincarnation and where all the new souls come from over time. Everybody always say that they've been the reincarnation of Cleopatra or Alexander the Great. I always want to tell them they were probably some dumb fuck like everybody else. I mean, it's impossible. Think about it. The world population has doubled in the past 40 years, right? So if you really believe in that ego thing of one eternal soul, then you have only 50% chance of your soul being over 40. And for it to be over 150 years old, then it's only one out of six.

Right, so what are you saying? That reincarnation doesn't exist, or that we're all young souls like where half of us are first round humans?

No, no. What I'm trying to say is that somehow I believe reincarnation is just a - a poetic expression of what collective memory really is. There was this article by this biochemist that I read not long ago, and he was talking about how when a member of our species is born, it has a billion years of memory to draw on. And this is where we inherit our instincts.

I like that. It's like there's this whole telepathic thing going on that we're all a part of, whether we're conscious of it or not. That would explain why there are all these, you know, seemingly spontaneous, worldwide, innovative leaps in science, in the arts. You know, like the same results poppin' up everywhere independent of each other. Some guy on a computer, he figures something out, and then almost simultaneously a bunch of other people all over the world figure out the same thing. They did this study. They isolated a group of people over time, and they monitored their abilities at crossword puzzles, right, in relation to the general population. And they secretly gave them a day-old crossword, one that had already been answered by thousands of other people, right. And their scores went up dramatically, like 20 percent. So it's like once the answers are out there, people can pick up on 'em. It's like we're all telepathically sharing our experiences.