A Scanner Darkly (R)

by Suzanne Baran
21 July 2006

Fractured reality infused with smarmy humor, A Scanner Darkly is not a movie for everyone. The screenplay is based loosely on late author PHILLIP K. DICK’s bout with drugs and his constant questioning of reality. The film’s bizarre, dream-like scenes evoke a type of eerie future riddled with paranoia, suffused with an ongoing fight against drug addition.

To achieve the look and feel of a dreamlike state, producer TOMMY PALLOTTA and director RICHARD LINKLATER returned to the style of Waking Life—with a process called rotoscoping. Essentially, the film is shot with live actors and then animated over the film stock frame by frame. It takes more than 500 hours to create one minute of usable footage. Not only does it appear highly inventive and apropos to the story line, but it allows lower budget films to add infinite visual effects. If it can be drawn, it can be done.

Set in a universe of the near future, somewhat like GEORGE ORWELL’s 1984, A Scanner Darkly focuses on the institutional battle against drug addiction – particularly a drug called Substance D. A friend asked if this stood for Dopamine, but it does not. The drug is supposed to create a split between the right and left hemispheres of the brain so communication between the two becomes impossible.

An undercover cop is to spy on his friends. In wild intricacies in the plot, the cop ultimately spies on himself. KEANU REEVES plays protagonist Bob Arctor and dons a scramble suit — a relentlessly changing body suit made of fragments of hundreds of faces, body parts, hairstyles and clothes — that the character wears to cloak his identity. This puts the viewer fitfully on edge, and contributes to the paranoid overtones in the film.

Meanwhile, one of Arctor’s friends, played brilliantly by ROBERT DOWNEY JR., is a highly logorrheic Substance D abuser. Other friends in the mix include Ernie Luckman (WOODY HARRELSON), Donna Hawthorne (WINONA RYDER) and Charles Freck (RORY COCHRANE).

The story takes a stab at some really controversial and timely issues. They are: addiction, surveillance, paranoia and personal freedoms. Linklater chooses his own reality of Dick’s story by having the characters espouse philosophically on a number of issues. In line with typical Linklater style, the dialogue tells more of the story than the events depicted on screen.

A Scanner Darkly is not for all. Its poignancy requires some effort to follow the dialogue and storyline underneath a murky yet vibrant visual landscape. Some may find the film lacks Dick’s genius. His infusion of heightened paranoia comes across beautifully in his writing, and is also accomplished on screen. Words, however, are given more reel time than the story itself, avid Dick readers have said.

One of my personal favorite scenes contains seemingly superfluous dialogue about the missing gears on a bike scored by the character played by Downey, Jr. While it might make some uncomfortable to listen to the coherent ramblings of an addict, I found it refreshing and true to form. Linklater states in an interview that that scene was one his staff wanted to cut but he did not omit it because it strikes a chord with people who have actually used drugs. People who cannot stand to listen to others talking about things impertinent to their lives are usually the ones who rat this out to the cops.

While the credits rolled, I heard the perfect song for the movie: “Black Swan” by THOM YORKE off his new solo album, The Eraser. It fit the mood of the film, and if the film were a song, I think it could be represented by Black Swan—“What will grow quickly, that you can’t make straight / It’s the price you gotta pay / Do yourself a favor and pack your bags / Buy a ticket and get on the train…”

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