A Scanner Darkly

A Scanner Darkly (2006) is about a narcotics agent in the near future losing his own identity. Most of the population is addicted to a drug called Substance D. It breaks the connection between the two halves of the brain and makes a person perceive themselves as two separate people. Fred is an undercover officer. To stay anonymous he wears a scramble suit, which projects millions of constantly changing faces and bodies, so nobody knows who he is, not even his superiors. His assignment is to watch an addict named Bob Arctor. The problem is that Bob Arctor is him. Fred is set to monitor cameras installed in his own house, and he gradually forgets that the two identities are one person. The visual method is rotoscoping. It was shot normally and then drawn over, frame by frame. It took a large team and a long time; the result is an image that shimmers and never settles. No character's face is quite the same in any two frames, which produces the same effect as the drug's distortion of perception. It is adapted from Philip K. Dick's novel, which he wrote out of his own experience. At the end of the book there is a note in which the author lists the friends who died or were permanently damaged by drugs, and adds himself to the list. The film reproduces that note over the closing credits and turns the story, at a stroke, into a real act of mourning. Richard Linklater directed, having used the same technique in Waking Life. Keanu Reeves, Robert Downey Jr., Woody Harrelson and Winona Ryder star. It runs 100 minutes. Good for: science fiction, Philip K. Dick, and formal experiment. Less good for: the narrative is deliberately scattered, the subject is addiction, and the tone is hopeless.