A Scanner Darkly
movie based on a book by Philip K. Dick

Rated R

DVD commentary by:
Jonathan Letham, PK Dick Historian
Isa Dick Hackett, daughter
Richard Linklater, screensriter/director
Tommy Pallotta, producer
Keanu Reeves, actor


You know those scenes on That 70s Show, where the stoners sit around and talk? This movie has a lot of that, but with walking around. It's about surveilance of drug users. The narcs have science fiction disguise suits, so part of the mystery is who's really watching who.

It's animated, but not like a kid's cartoon. It works as an adult film. The characters were wierdos at first, but friends by the finish.

I turned on the DVD commentary, and heard this:

Richard Linklater: In thinking of this movie...
That's why it felt so urgent in a way. In the post 9-11 environment, you get this idea of
a drug war, and then it was easy to think of it becoming one with the war on terror. Let's
just declare on one of the wars that go on for-ever. And then to grab power and to
manipulate people.

Tommy Pallotta: Or war on concepts. You know who are truely the victims, are the
individuals who are sensitive to that. The canaries in the coal mine are who this is really
about.

Isa Dick Hackett: I just read a headline about the film in the paper, and it said,"It's a feast for the freaks." And I thought, you know actually, that's who my dad
primarily thought about, and wrote about, and was concerned about, is, not freaks in the
way you would think of, but people who are lonely, disenfranchised people, who somehow
didn't fit in. Do you agree, Jonathan?

Jonathan Lethem: Yeah, I think he saw the outsider figure, the alienated or self-
destructive figure as as a metaphor for that sort of aspect in every individual.

I like that last, but want to add to the first. War on concepts is not exclusive to the conservative side. War on Poverty has been going on for-ever... and I believe the environmental movement has found a way to grab power and manipulate people.

Anyways, the film is decent. Not a masterpiece, but entertaining and thought provoking.