A Scanner Darkly
Technology is a tricky thing. The great philosopher Martin Heidegger told us technology is more of a thought than any sort of singular piece of electronics. It seems, to me at least, that Martin would have made a fine director.
So we enter A Scanner Darkly; with the rotoscoping effect Linklater introduced with his 2001 indie film Waking Life, it has not been since Sin City that a big name adult picture has had a CGI effect as their aesthetic front man. When first viewing a film of this sort it is, perhaps, a mistake to automatically pose the question: What would this film be without this effect? To engage this question is a mistake in some cases because the film, in fact, has that particular effect, so it really is irrelevant to ponder different stripped down variations that the original could manifest in. What is relevant is to ponder what effect the effect has on the overall ambience of the movie.
The story which is adapted from the Phillip K Dick novel of the same name is set in a world in the near future in which twenty percent of the population is addicted to the new psychoactive drug ‘Substance D’. Officer Fred (Keanu Reeves) is a police officer deep undercover in the efforts of exposing the powerful drug ring behind substance D, so deep in fact that none of the other officers even know his name. To aid in his anonymity, both from the public and the government, Officer Fred and another of his co-workers wear ‘scramble suits’ which, as the name implies, scrambles three million different visual personas about their entire bodies at all times. The plot begins to unfold when Officer Fred is ordered to perform surveillance on his own house – home of a major suspected dealer. After steadily ingesting substance D as in aid in infiltrating the drug ring, Officer Fred’s true identity seems to be becoming increasingly foreign – Bob Archer seems to be slipping from his mind as much as Officer’s Fred’s is covered in illusion.
The cast, despite what you may want to say about their own drug inclinations, works flawlessly within the picture when isolated. Robert Downey Jr. and Woody Harrelson are believable as strung out, paranoid delusional live-in friends, while Rory Cochrane relies on his Dazed and Confused experience to produce the completely brain-fried Charles Freck. Keanu, who is beyond criticism at this point, works well with his stoner demeanor and genuine ability to seem absorbingly perplexed. Winona Rider at first glance comes across as the rather mundane generic girlfriend, but in retrospect that seems to be exactly what Linklater wanted.
The dreamy animation layer which is draped over the entire live action film is ambitious, but in the end turns out to be exactly what drug the public ordered. At points I found it hard to catch all of syllables in Downey Jr.’s paranoid, rhetorical twitches because I couldn’t see his lips properly. Instead of concentrating on this annoyance however, I let myself be pulled into this aesthetic intoxication and found myself laughing at the rather ingenious blend of Dick’s comedic wit and pure paranoid nonsense. Deep in this confusing world of habitual self destruction we find believable characters which mirror, in an almost eerie way, the apathy of this intellectual skepticism which, when used habitually perpetuates an autonomy which ironically keeps them in a dead end frat house atmosphere – slowly rotting away. It is in this dark introspective chasm that we find the situation to be more of a nightmare for Bob Archer, one that is only getting worse.
An intriguing story, excessively interlaced with Dick’s own habitual metaphors for government control; but by the end it leaves you wanting something. A resolution to the dead end conversations, a better overall picture, any sort of answer, or some way to break from the main theme of detachment – but it never comes. It is that feeling that makes this movie a success, the feeling of being left alone to confront your own thoughts; to stare into that place where only pure emotion resides. The movie asks “What does a scanner see? Into the head? Down into the heart? Does it see into me? Into us?†It is a fitting question, for us, the viewers.
