Viking Night: A Scanner Darkly
By Bruce Hall
April 5, 2016
BoxOfficeProphets.com
This movie is also animated, using a technique that recreates what the world looks like when you’re on bath salts.
It’s hard to explain why, but I kind of like this film, even though I’m not entirely sure I understand it. Maybe it’s because it really does sound like the best fanfic ever. The setup is that the “drug problem” has spiraled out of control, so that about a quarter of the nation’s population are like our friends I just mentioned. Bob Arctor (Keanu Reeves) is a scruffy 30-something who lives in the battered old home he once shared with his wife and kids. Now he cohabitates with Barris (Downey), a pedantic motormouth, and Luckman (Harrelson), a good natured burnout whose brain is so fried he might legally be considered produce.
Needless to say, Donna (Winona Ryder) is Arctor’s love interest, and she is also on drugs. And speaking of drugs, cocaine and heroin are old news. The hip new way to kill yourself is called Substance D, and although I don’t remember anyone ever explaining what it does, it’s clear that long term use leads to paranoia, hallucinations, and acting like Woody Harrelson
But here’s the good part. Arctor is also an undercover cop - or what passes for one in a world where everyone is an informant. With the drug epidemic as bad as it is, the government has taken public surveillance to unprecedented levels. It’s safe to assume that no matter who you are, or where you are, someone is always watching. But with every square inch of the city under constant watch, keeping identities secret is doubly important. So, when they’re back at HQ with all the other cops, undercover agents wear special suits to conceal their identities. The effect is that you look AND sound like everyone and no one, all at once. Think of it as a combination full body condom/holographic imaging device, if that helps.
So, Arctor and his boss (known only as “Hank”) see each other every day, but neither man has any idea who the other one is. It’s an environment where one could be manager of an entire team, without having any idea who any of them are. Now imagine this kind of thing on agency level, and you can see how Arctor inadvertently ends up becoming the subject of his own investigation. Jealous of Arctor’s relationship with Donna, Barris implicates him to the police, and unknowingly ends up interviewing with Arctor and Hank.. Since Hank has no idea the person standing in front of him IS Arctor, he orders a surveillance kit on the house.
This means that when Arctor is at home, he spends hours watching his roommates get wasted and tinker with firearms. And when he's at work, he gets to do the same thing, behind a computer monitor. I don't know about you, but that sounds like a potentially funny story. And, once or twice, it is. But while it's fun to imagine this as Douglas Adams style social satire, it's instead what you might get if Terry Gilliam went to work for Pixar. The animation involved a team of artists literally painting over the film, and the effect is strangely hypnotic. It feels a little gimmicky, since I have a hard time thinking of a reason for it other than the fact that everyone is on drugs, and it looks trippy. If the film had an identifiable theme, it might tie together a little neatly, but it’s hard to tell what this story wants me to think about.
Is this about the futility of using drugs to dull the pain of a meaningless existence? Is it a cautionary tale about removing the unspoken bonds of civil trust that hold society together? Is it an ironic joke about how the larger the government gets, the less it has to govern because it’s easier to just force people to do things? Or, is this just a thinly veiled Philip K Dick autobiography of sorts, as is suggested by the closing titles? Maybe it’s about how having roommates sucks. Maybe it’s all of these things. Virtually everyone in this movie is portrayed as a victim, or in the case of the government, bureaucratic opportunists who take action for its own sake, without establishing clear goals. It’s definitely realistic in that regard, but it’s confusing to figure out the broader meaning of the film.
Richard Linklater is one of those directors who excels at capturing the essence of casual conversation, so there isn’t a moment of this film that isn’t in some way interesting. The story touches on a lot of things, but it’s in the same way a coke fiend can’t stay on one subject for more than 10 seconds. A Scanner Darkly flits from one idea to another like a spastic moth, never settling on anything or giving you a chance to figure out what’s happening. There’s an interesting twist at the end, but it feels implausible enough to displace any real feeling of satisfaction. Is the idea that we’re all victims? That society is too far gone to be saved, and we’re all just swirling down the drain together in unison? Is it that drugs are bad, mmmmkay?
The only message I can clearly identify here is that everyone is somebody’s bitch, and that’s just the sort of cynical sentiment I can see coming out of Philip K Dick. In fact, it’s a conversation I literally just had with my boss the other day, so it appears that as usual, Philip K. Dick has correctly predicted the dystopian hell fast approaching over the horizon. Or, maybe he just predicted Sad Keanu. Either way, A Scanner Darkly is a strange, mesmerizing film that you will probably never understand OR forget.