This handily tied in with Fear and Loathing..., which we saw a few days ago, forming some kind of hard drugs mini-season. Like the aforementioned film, A Scanner Darkly gave a twisted view of a downwardly-spiralling hard drugs nightmare. And in place of the Gilliam direction Scanner... offers us an eerily ever-changing picture courtesy of Rotoscope animation.
The story was quite pleasingly random. At first it seemed to just concentrate on the actions of this small group of addicts, which was actually fairly amusing, but before the viewer could get bored the terrifying nature of Keanu Reeves's nightmare became all the more apparent. He was ordered to spy on himself while he became more and more dependent on the illegal "D". The final revelations, which were actually dealt with rather quickly, were quite shocking and helped to give some sort of meaning to everything that had gone before.
The Rotoscope itself was the perfect medium for charting Keanu's descent into terror. If ever the plot was moving a little too slowly just watching the animation was constantly fascinating. The ever-changing lines and colours were a bit creepy but the rotoscope allowed the natural inclusion of fantasy sequences and, as a piece de resistance, the security suits, the outward appearance of which changed constantly.
Again, it felt a bit as if I'd swallowed lots of illegal drugs: 7.75
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