Le congrès

This film gets an average score of 6,5 out of 10, it seems like a score you'd give to your average, passable flick with average (=little) imagination. I'd give it a 7,5 at least. I didn't know what to expect at all and was in for a surprisingly odd visual treat that looks mostly like an animated dream.

I'm not sure I want to re-watch this film again (I might get a headache), it was quite something to ingest. There's also a lot there to think about and not everything makes sense. Nor did it have to as the film chose to display a dream world mostly.

The transitions between animated and live action are horrible, non-existent even. Also, the motivations (why does Robin escape to the dream world in a fancy car) are not always clear, neither is it always clear what's going on.

Juggling with too many ideas, it's not consistently sticking to a core concept. I feel like I watched 2 movies. One like S1mone, but more serious. The other, more like an animated Being John Malkovich, less quirky but more poetic and equally self- referential (there's references to Robin Wright's actual acting career, she plays herself...).

I could live with all it's flaws, because it was quite an intriguing film. I still give it a high score because it's concepts interested me and I think you have to see it also as a work of art to behold, not necessarily to comprehend. It's so different from the usual film, even if you watch (partially) animated films. The animation is the highlight of the film.

I watched Planete Sauvage (trippy 1973 animation) a week ago and found this one equally stimulating for my brain as it feels expanded. Hadn't seen something like this since Paprika and this had more substance to boot even though it didn't focus and flesh it's ideas out enough. It was a bold attempt nonetheless.

Ari Folman, the Israeli director and writer of this film, creates one of the most anti-Hollywood and anti-Holocaust films in a while. And when I am saying anti-Holocaust I mean against its use for financial or propaganda purposes, like most Hollywood movies about the subject.

The story is weird, wonderful, but a little (a bit more, actually) confusing. The first half an apocalyptic of cinema's future, the movie continues with a full animated second half in a world where anyone can imagine anything, but produces nothing.

It would be pointless to talk about the story line too much, since at the end of the film I had that dizzy feeling of "what the hell did I just watch?" and that most metaphors just flew around my ears and eyes. Enough to say that the film is really original, well acted, with good production values and fantastic visuals. I just wish I would have understood more of it.

It all revolves around Robin Wright playing... Robin Wright. She first gets scanned so that her persona can be (ab)used by the funny named Miramount studio in any kind of film they choose and 20 years later she is chemically thrown into a world where reality appears as 1930's animation and everything is possible. At this point you realize that the story is not about an actress, or even cinema studios in general, but as everyday people that are actors in their own lives. The metaphors come out pouring in a psychedelic fashion that left me completely confused.

Yes, there are some similarities to the Stanisław Lem book "The Futurological Congress", but one might argue that there were just as many influences from sources like the movie Brazil, or Matrix, or Roger Rabbit, why not? The outcome is not really an adaptation of anything, but a truly original work.

My recommendation is to watch it. After all, nobody fully understands any work of art as the artist intended it. Instead we marvel at their complexity and beauty. And this film has plenty of both.

The movie itself is a metaphor for some of the new trends that are happening around us. It makes a hinted implicit discussion about things like the Internet culture (avatars, virtual life), Intellectual Properties, rights, freedom, terrorism, capitalism, life extension. The movie is deep and few people can really get to the bottom of it and get the messages. My wife for example, got out from the movie unable to explain it. I, on the other hand, thought that the messages in the movie were powerful. It reminded me for moments "Vanilla Sky" and the "Matrix" though a bit different. The animation seems deliberately hand made and old (as Disney's movies) and I believe this is yet another critique about the cutting-edge Pixar computerized movies, made by hundreds of people and co-producers that shape up each character (which is an owned intellectual property). Producing this movie was a bold and brave move – it may get mixed critique from the intelligent, and might be mocked by the superficial crowd, but I say it is brave and brilliant!

THE CONGRESS (2014). Director Ari Folman's THE CONGRESS not only uses lead actress Robin Wright's persona, but, in the film her whole acting being is taken over by Hollywood. Director Folman, who made the stunning WALTZ WITH BASHIR (an Oscar nominee), adapts Stanislaw Lem's (Solaris) novel The Futurological Congress by making it fully contemporary. The central idea is that an actor's image can be 'bought out' by Hollywood by digitally scanning them and then do what they want by incorporating that image in any movie or TV show they wish. The actors themselves then are free to "retire". For well over a decade we've seen CGI versions of dead actors placed into movies, TV and commercials - so this isn't so much sci-fi as near-future - or, even, Today what with the de-aging of DeNiro in THE IRISHMAN and Harrison Ford in the current Indy 5.

The key for most viewers is how they view the largely animated second half of the movie where Wright lives out her artificially created being in an advanced hallucinatory Virtual Reality world. I went with it all the way, but Folman's animation style may not be for everyone (as it was with WALTZ). The movie was much better received in Europe than stateside where it was barely released (the reviews were decent). Robin Wright is terrific and brilliant in a similar way to how John Malkovich was in BEING JOHN MALKOVICH - themselves, but, not quite. The supporting cast including Harvey Keitel, Paul Giamatti, Danny Huston and the voice of Jon Hamm is solid. Max Richter's terrific score abets the visuals.

THE CONGRESS is a film which grows in impact as the years roll on, as evidenced now by the twin SAG and WGA strikes where AI has become a sticking point in the negotiations. Reportedly, the Studios asked for permission to allow background actors to work for one day and be scanned for permanent re-use without additional pay or permission. Nine years ago THE CONGRESS was sci-fi, now....????

Greetings again from the darkness. As a fan of director Ari Folman's Oscar nominated Waiting for Bashir (2008), I was excited to see this one on the line-up at Dallas International Film Festival. While some will find The Congress a bit messy and difficult to follow, it certainly reinforces Folman's innovative and creative approach to story telling and filmmaking.

The first half of the movie is live action and the second half is animated. The best description I can offer is as a social commentary, not just on Hollywood, but society. While "Her" makes the case for virtual relationships, this movie makes the case for virtual everything else! Robin Wright plays Robin Wright, an aging movie star who is offered a chance to stay young and be popular forever. Just sign this contract, and Miramount Studios owns your complete public image. No more acting, just kick back and enjoy your money ... and watch what we do with your image and career.

The cast is very strong, but the movie has a feeling of having been rushed through production ... at least from the live action side. In addition to Ms. Wright, Danny Huston chews some scenery as a cut throat studio head. His blunt description of Ms. Wright's "bad choices" since The Princess Bride speak to not only many actors, but for many in the audience as well. Harvey Keitel plays the agent, Jon Hamm appears through voice only in the animated sequence, Kodi Smit-McPhee (Let Me In, The Road) plays Wright's son and central plot figure, and Sami Gayle plays his sister.

Some will be reminded of A Scanner Darkly, and others of Cool World. The best this movie has to offer is not in its (creative) presentation, but rather in its ability to provoke thought about the look of future society and the impact of technology ... as well as the whole issue of identity and what makes us who we are. It's a brain-scrambler if you stick with it.