I recently went to see a movie and one of the trailers caught my attention. The trailer, using a visual style that hasn't been seen in a feature length film, rotoscoping, seems like watching a moving comic book than a movie. Rotoscoping, for those who don't know what it is, is an animtion effect where (at least at the time of it's invention), they project a recorded film onto a screen and sketch a drawing from that projection. Now, the effect has evolved into the digial realm. The director, Richard Linklater, used this effect in an indie film "Waking Life". That film was a series of short vignettes, and his choice was to highlight the unreality of the settings the shorts were in.

The effect is now used in A Scanner Darkly, to highlight the unreal paranoia and mentally unbalanced viewpoint of the protagonist. The film, adapted from Phillip K. Dick's bestseller, is set in a world where a paranoid US Government has hired nearly 20% of the US population as undercover narcotics officers. The main character, who's only referred to as 'Fred', is given an objective: to investigate a new narcotic, only reffered to as either "Substance D", or "Death", the source of which is unknown.

The super-narcotic is incredibly damaging. When one takes it for a long time, it causes the two halves of a person's brain to degenerate into individual personalities, which are always combative. In other words, each side is trying to take over. They are also unable to share the same memories.

The trailer seems to indicate that Fred, in order to prevent arising suspicion from the drug dealers and addicts, ends up becoming an addict himself. The up-front personality he invented as a disguise becomes a second personality, and he has to find a way to observe himself. In comes the technology known as "Scanners". one can observe themself without actually knowing it is themself, hence the title "A Scanner Darkly."

It is a deeply psychological examination, both of the paranoia of the anti-drug war, and of the damaging effects of drug usage. Written during the 70's, the book this film is based on, was supposedly written while Dick was living in a commune with a bunch of speed addicts, so he has an unusually clear view of the drug culture, which ehances the personalities of each of the characters.

The choice by Linklater to use rotoscoping produces an unusual and very dark and gritty comic book feel to the movie, (as seen in the trailer), and serves to highlight Fred/Bob (his second personality)'s mental unreality he starts to live in once the drug's damage sets in.

The film has cast Woody Harrelson, Keanu Reeves and Robert Downy Jr., so it seems like it's a high-budget film, but from what I've read, they managed to get Keanu for 76,000$, compare to 15 M$ each for the matrix and his two reprisals for the sequels, it seems unusual. Another few interesting facts, they didn't use any makeup, and did all the visual touch ups on the characters in rotoscoping post-film production, and to top that off, no sets. It was more like a theater stage than a film set. All the backgrounds and character effects were effectively drawn in. The film uses a number of film-like effects like scanlines, as well as costume redrawing in a few particular cases, and those can be seen in just the theatrical trailer.

From what it looks like, it has immediately drawn me in, and I'm not much of a Phillip K. Dick fan. Anyone who's read it might be able to sound off more about it, but I would suggest you view trailer to get an idea of what I mean.

http://www.ifilm.com/ifilmdetail/2665143