A Scanner Darkly Review
by Mark Bennett
Notwithstanding the cult success of Blade Runner
(1982), Hollywood has always had an uneasy relationship with the works
of late science fiction author Philip K Dick. Where his contemporaries
such as Issac Asimov and John Wyndham tended to focus on the human
condition or more cartoonish aspects of sci-fi, Dick was more
preoccupied with a grimy, gritty, amoral and ambiguous future. Rarely
did his stories come with a classic happy ending – hence the altered
finale of Minority Report (2002), for instance. Thankfully director Richard Linklater (Tape,
2001) has never been one to shy away from unconventional filmmaking and
it’s hard to imagine a person better suited to tackle one of Dick’s
most disturbing and unsettling works. In A Scanner Darkly,
we are introduced to a near future where an increasing percentage of
the population is addicted to a drug called Substance-D, which causes –
among other things – paranoia and hallucinations. Keanu Reeves plays
Bob Arctor, an undercover cop who has infiltrated a house it is hoped
will lead his unit to the wider network of distributors. Hidden cameras
are set up in the house and from time to time Bob heads back to the
‘station’ (he and his colleagues wear special morphing suits to hide
their identities from everyone – including each other), where as
‘Officer Fred’ he tries to glean what information he can from the
surveillance footage. But to be convincing in his role, Bob has been
taking Substance-D – and it soon begins to mess with his brain, making
it difficult to determine what’s real and what’s not. Confusion and a
couple of twists lead up to the climax, which is both depressing and
satisfying in a One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest kind of way. While it has the sturdy platform of Dick’s novel to stand on, the true strength of A Scanner Darkly
is its performances. Reeves has rarely if ever been in such good form,
and Robert Downey Jr and Woody Harrelson are ideally cast as Bob’s
sketchy motormouth and deluded stoner housemates. Linklater’s direction
is also superb, allowing the actors to ad-lib within the bounds of
their characters but also using a firm hand to keep the film on course. One other thing: in the lead up to the release of A Scanner Darkly,
much publicity has been given to the rotoscoping process, where
animation is laid over live action film. I’m pleased to report the
hoopla is warranted, in this instance anyway – the rotoscoping helps
convey Dick’s unsettling vision of a drug-addled sub-reality. Much like
the effects used in Sin City,
rotoscoping puts the viewer’s brain in a weird kind of no-man’s-land,
where it’s trying to reconcile the on-screen image with either
live-action or animation but is unable to do either. Quite remarkable.
Sadly, though, it’s a safe bet that the release of A Scanner Darkly
will be succeeded by a slew of mediocre movies that have been
rotoscoped for no good reason, other than the filmmakers thought it was
‘cool’. A Scanner Darkly is definitely not for everyone, in the same way a film such as Trainspotting
was not for everyone. This is not mass-market entertainment. It’s the
sort of intelligent, inventive and courageous filmmaking that has all
too infrequently been associated with Philip K Dick’s work. There’ll be
the usual chorus of ‘This was boring’ and ‘I didn’t get it’ clogging
the imdb message boards (not to mention the inevitable whining from
some Dick purists) but any genuine connoisseur of film should add this
to their must-see list immediately. 4.5
out
of 5 A Scanner Darkly
Australian
release: 30th November,
2006
Cast: Keanu Reeves, Mitch Baker, Robert Downey Jr, Winona Ryder, Woody Harrelson
Director: Richard Linklater
Website: Click
here.
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