Slacker

I walked into Richard Linklater's SLACKER not knowing for sure what to expect. I think that is the best way to experience this film. I wouldn't exactly put this film under 'Comedy', if I ran my own video store. I would invent the category 'Post-Film School Experimental Piece' and place it under that. Because that is just what it is, but don't let that repulse you. It is very interesting and has the power to warp you in what seems like one shot throughout a day and night in a college town of Austin, Texas.

The true life preserver of this film is the sure directorial hand and witty script of Linklater. I enjoy the matter-of-fact philosophy within the dialogue of Linklater movies, (DAZED & CONFUSED, BEFORE SUNRISE)it is especially heavy here. It's fun watching the weirdos in this movie, like the video-obsessed droid who prefers taped sequences over reality or the chick with Madonna's pap smear (eewww!!) But it's almost frightening when you come upon a character very much like yourself.

But the movie most successfully gives us a town populated by characters we actually believe are living their aimless life in front of us. Minute-by-minute plays that intricately connect into a long string of slacker beads. These characters belong to the counter-culture where neurosis comes naturally and there are hardly skeptics anywhere. Where conversations find the metaphysical levels of funny postcards.

Later in the future, we will trip upon this movie again and find it more as being a time capsule of the early 90s than a semi-experimental comedy by a director most known for his insights of the sub-culture living inside their own heads.

This movie has no discernable "plot" except to follow the lives of some of the most interesting and quirky people you are liable to meet. You follow one person, you get a snapshot of their life and the movie then takes off on the life of a person that may just be walking by on the street. You get just enough to encapsulate where they are at in life right now. Most are going no where and this is the reason for the movies title. Great dialogue here and great stuff to get you thinking about the strangest things (Smurfs as Hindu propaganda???). Great movie if you will just give yourself over to it and release all expectations as far as what a movie is supposed to be.

Director Richard Linklater follows one slacker after another in this absolutely fascinating film. Linklater throws out the rules of traditional movie-making with this low-budget film shot in Austin, Texas. There is no star, in fact, there is no central character. The camera simply follows one person, who meets and relates to a second person, then follows the second person to a third person and so on. Although the structure appears aimless, it remains thematically in focus throughout, and the film introduces enough interesting characters to fill five movies. The only problem is the length. By the end, the novelty starts to wear off a little bit.

Even though I've immensely enjoyed many of Richard Linklater's films (especially "Waking Life" and "Dazed and Confused"), I never had much desire to sit through Slacker. The title and the era made me anticipate this would be a lazily-crafted, self-indulgent, aimless exploration of the oh-so-forgettable ennui of 20-somethings.

Boy, was I wrong.

"Slacker" is actually a true "art film", a highly conceptualized storytelling experiment in the manner of mid-60's Godard. In fact, in many ways it seems patterned after Godard's "Weekend" -- a bold ambition for a young low-budget filmmaker if ever there was one -- with its long, fluid takes that seamlessly drift from one story to another with chance passings on Austin's sidewalks.

In many ways I found Slacker more interesting and more enjoyable than Godard's movie, though. Weekend ultimately boils down to Godard satirizing his society, while maintaining a dry, utterly unsentimental and unemotional attitude towards his characters. When you watch Weekend, there is always the sense that Godard is looking down his nose at his characters (however justifiably). Slacker has a more complicated relationship between Linklater and his subject. While there is undoubtedly a strongly satirical feel to many of the scenes (for example, the two apparently stoned guys debating the meaning of Saturday morning cartoons while they chain smoke in a bar), at the same time, the movie feels made from the inside. It's, maybe, a satirical self-portrait. In fact, since Linklater plays the first of the Slacker characters that we meet -- the cab fare spinning yarns about parallel universes -- it is in some manner quite literally a self-portrait.

All of that is a very academic way of saying what's viscerally obvious when watching Slacker - - it's funny and real and naturalistic at the same time that it is abstract, constructed and very obviously written.

I'm not sure what it all adds up to or if it's supposed to add up to anything. After all, this is the story of people who, with a couple of notable exceptions, can't seem to put their plans into action ("You're not on the list"), so it makes perfect sense that the movie in the end feels like it just wanders off a cliff instead of coming to an end. It would be a mistake to say that the movie captures a generation -- these are caricatures, without doubt -- but it does capture the flavor of the times as they rolled by on some particularly lazy afternoons.

The most interesting thing about Slacker is the way it was filmed. There is no real ONE storyline, until later in the film when viewers realize that one of the main premises is that everything that happens to someone in their day can have a effect on people they might not even know.

The film is split into 5-10 minute bits and pieces, as the camera moves from person to person. The first character we meet sees someone on the street and has a conversation with then, then the camera follows them for a while. Great stuff for those who suffer from Attention Deficit Disorder, which I think represents most of us age 30 and under.

It's a very original and thoughtful idea. Rather than develop one storyline, we get to see part of many peoples lives and how they all affect each other. There are some great moments of comedy, and tongue in cheek humor, as well as sadness.

Perhaps moreso than any other film, Slacker embodies what Generation X is/was all about. It is one of the great defining films of Generation-X, along with Trainspotting, Clerks, True Romance, and Reality Bites.