Animated ‘Waking’ deftly fuses illusion, reality

In theaters

WAKING LIFE, written and directed by Richard Linklater, animation direction by Bob Sabiston. 99 minutes. Rated R.

“In life, the trick is to combine your waking rational abilities with the infinite possibilities of your dreams. If you can do that, you can do anything.”

Or so says a character in the new Richard Linklater movie, “Waking Life.”

But what happens if you never learn that trick? Or if you don’t believe your dreams are your destiny? Or if you can’t get behind the idea that – according to this film – we’re all telepathically sharing our experiences and that the greatest mistake you can make is to believe you’re alive?

The nonanswers to those questions – and many others like them – are tucked within the seams of this endlessly trippy film, a surreal, metaphysical romp that stands as one of the year’s freshest, most bracing movies.

Sometimes brilliant yet other times maddening, “Waking Life” is an animated film that’s an exercise in the fusion of illusion and reality; it’s not for those seeking a run-of-the-mill Hollywood movie. Indeed, “Waking Life” is alive with so many provocative ideas and theories about life, living, death and the meaning of dreams, it can’t be viewed with a trace of passivity.

Together with his art director, Bob Sabiston, Linklater has crafted a dizzying maelstrom of philosophies wrapped around stunning images reminiscent of those in a graphic novel.

As his characters plunge into the meaning of life and the mysteries of the world (and beyond), Linklater’s movie burns, shimmers and jitters with life itself.

What he’s created is a near-seamless marriage between the medium of film and the content of a story. Using Sabiston’s interpolated rotoscoping software, he’s taken live-action video and painted over it frame by frame, thus generating an Impressionist’s dream from the roots of reality which is exactly where Linklater suggests we live.

“Waking Life” doesn’t have a plot. It follows a young man played by Wiley Wiggins who, unable to wake from a dream, meets along his fantastic dream-journey a whole host of types ranting and pontificating about “what it all means.”

Most of those he encounters are played by nonactors, but Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy (of Linklater’s “Before Sunrise”), and director Stephen Soderberg and Linklater himself show up to offer their own ideas about the workings of the universe.

As serious as the film sounds, it sometimes has a biting sense of humor, both in its animation, which can be wild, and in its dialogue, which is more than willing to poke fun at itself while reinforcing the idea that “the ongoing wow is happening right now.”

Grade: A

On video and DVD

AMERICAN OUTLAWS (release date: Tuesday, Dec. 4), directed by Les Mayfield, written by Roderick Taylor and John Rogers. 94 minutes. Rated PG-13.

At the end of Les Mayfield’s “American Outlaws,” when the music swells, the last pistol is fired and audiences are free to contemplate a stiff drink or a good cry (may I suggest both?), the blame game begins as the credits start to roll.

Was it Mayfield who insisted that Jesse James, Cole Younger and members of the James-Younger Gang be turned into such relentlessly stupid cartoons? Or did that decision come from screenwriters Roderick Taylor and John Rogers, who also happened to pen the year’s worst dialogue?

Wherever the blame lies, “American Outlaws” is probably best enjoyed as a comedy. There are, after all, several good belly laughs sandwiched between the beefcake and cheese, the best of which springs from Kathy Bates’ brief yet over-the-top performance as Jesse (Colin Farell) and Frank (Gabriel Macht) James’ mother.

History buffs know that Ma James’ home was blown to hell by the Pinkertons, but they also know she survived the explosion. Not so in “Outlaws,” which can’t help itself from humiliating Bates further by asking her to stagger out of the freshly flattened shack and collapse into her sons’ arms.

With her unfocused eyes blinking away death as if they’re batting away bats, Ma’s last words are a hoot: “Looky there, boys. Look! Look! Look! The Lord is shorter than I thought he’d be …”

Smallness of stature fits this film well. As the James-Younger Gang charms its way through bank robbery after bank robbery, audiences are asked to believe that history has it all wrong. Jesse James and his crew weren’t murderers driven by moral corruption and greed. Instead, they only robbed banks and blew holes through innocent people to give back to the poor.

Hollywood has re-envisioned history before, but in “American Outlaws,” it turns that practice into a crime.

Grade: F

Christopher Smith is the Bangor Daily News film critic. His reviews appear Mondays and Fridays in Style, Tuesdays on “NEWS CENTER at 5” and Thursdays on “NEWS CENTER at 5:30” on WLBZ-2 and WCSH-6. He can be reached at BDNFilm1@aol.com.