Slacker

Extreme boredom leads to fascination. Like sands in the hourglass so is this day in the lives of several bohemians living in Austin, TX in 1990. You'll either be bored to tears or fascinated to no end.

If you've ever been to Austin, or spent a sleepy summer in a college town like Lawrence, KS or Madison, WI, then you'll appreciate the parade of pseudo-intellectuals and good-natured conspiracy theorists that provide much of the grist for the script. These offbeat characters and wonderful dialogue make this film memorable.

Remember the traumatized yacht owner in the greasy-spoon diner or the older dude with the toupee from the coffee shop? 'We've been on Mars since the 50's', he says. I loved the loser with the TV strapped to his back and the older guy who found an armed robber in his house, only to take him for a stroll and a friendly chat (about Charles Whitman). I also enjoyed the menstrual-cycle stone garden and the fortune-telling hippie chick with the black eye who was having 'a breakthrough day'. Nearly every conspiracy theory in modern pop-culture is paid lip service during the film. That's a lot of sophistry and navel gazing to be sure!

Not every character is a gem. The Madonna pap-smear girl gets more annoying with every viewing. But I recommend this film for its originality and understated comedic themes.

Much has been made of the tangent approach to the story telling. I think the technique runs out of steam about three-quarters of the way into it. In other words, it's about 20 minutes too long. Still, it's a fun movie!

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.

The title of Richard Linklater's deadpan debut feature describes a new generation of young, educated, aimless social misfits, part of a young neo-bohemian subculture of drifters, dreamers, and losers with no money, no ambitions, and no worries outside the occasional paranoid conspiracy theory. Their marginal lifestyle revolves around the concept of (in slacker vernacular) 'hanging out': eating, sleeping, watching TV, drinking coffee, and listening to the latest, local garage bands. But what they do best is simply talk, and the viewer is invited to eavesdrop on an extended series of hilarious soliloquies, anecdotes, and observations about politics, history, art, Smurfs, and UFOs, from a cast of nearly 100 genuine slackers pulled off the streets of Austin, Texas, apparently a hub of slackerdom. The film (not a documentary) is structured entirely around random encounters, methodically following one character after another, with no plot to interrupt all the verbal detours and digressions. It looks (and sounds) entirely improvised, but believe it or not was all carefully scripted and choreographed, and the result is one of the more unique and original American features of its time.

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.

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.