The Congress – Film Review
Director: Ari Folman
Starring: Robin Wright, Harvey Keitel, Jon Hamm and Paul Giamatti
Release Date: TBC
It takes a film of exceptional aspirations to be able to reach out of the screen and grab audiences, to feel like a different beast entirely when compared to the typical Rom-coms and Horror movies shown in ordinary cinemas.
The Congress is such a film, coupling human drama with mind-boggling science fiction in a story that is as convoluted as it is engaging. There are many layers to Ari Folman’s follow up to the excellent Waltz of Bashir, making it endlessly re-watchable and open to a vast number of interpretations.
As a word of warning however, this is a film that will almost certainly weigh upon your mind, smugly inviting you to try and make sense of it.
We are introduced in the opening sequence to real-life actress, Robin Wright. Having made some bad decisions earlier in her life, Robin is becoming increasingly downtrodden and concerned that she may never act again.
She is then offered one last job: to be scanned and have the actress Robin Wright separated from the woman that is Robin Wright. The actress Robin Wright will become a digital product, to be used as the film industry sees fit. The actual Robin Wright, meanwhile, will receive a settlement and be banned from acting on-screen, on-stage and anywhere else one can imagine.
After a great deal of deliberation, she eventually agrees. An action which has consequences more severe than she could have ever imagined.
One could very easily make the broad statement that this is a film of two halves. Once Robin is scanned, we cut to twenty years later when she enters the Animation Zone to attend a congress, where she is to receive an award.
As you might guess, the animation zone results in everyone and everything in it becoming animated and this sequence, there is no better way of saying it, is trippy.
Folman used the medium of animation in Waltz of Bashir in a way that was powerfully effective. It was crucial to the message he was trying to convey and it is doubtful it would have had such an impact if it was a live action feature.
The Congress is similar, in that it doesn’t just happen to have an animated sequence. The story demands it, it is essential. The creations that dance before our eyes, which include motorways made from rainbows and miniature robot butlers, are beautiful, thought-provoking and often very amusing. This is a far more colourful and creative affair than Waltz, but its ultimate message is certainly no less grim.
As one can imagine when dealing with characters based on real life actors, this postmodern film explores meta-narrative and the concept of ontology (the philosophy of ‘being’). Robin’s existence in the latter part of the film is not a simple case of “Is she, or is she not?”
She has any number of entities, which are explored in this journey of reflection and discovery. There is the actress Robin Wright, the character Robin Wright, the actress portraying the actress Robin Wright, the actress Robin Wrights’ concept of self and our perception of Robin Wright which divides into as many sub-levels as described above.
Despite the fact that this is a film in which Michael Jackson is portrayed casually and nonchalantly as a waiter, and Hitler as an inflatable cartoon character, the boundaries between truth and fiction nonetheless become increasingly blurred.
The film does well in leading us into this slowly, teasing the concept of multiple versions of the self in clever and witty ways. At one point, one of Robin’s daughters Sarah, played by Sami Gayle, comments how Robin has features that could easily portray either the victim or the Nazi in a Holocaust film.
In one truly spellbinding moment, when Robin is getting scanned, she is asked to go through a range of emotions, from laughter to despair. She struggles but is aided by her agent, who initially tells her how talented she is but then proceeds to tell her that she has become nothing more than a failure.
Aside from being a knockout performance from Wright, it raises an acute awareness of the position of the actress within the film. She is acting on numerous levels and this emphasizes the vacuous space normally occupied by the Self, the central person who Is. She is not a singular being, she is a collection of selves, of copies.
And as if that were not enough, the final frame of the film demands that we ask the same of ourselves in a way that is uncomfortable, daring and a total revelation.
This is a message the film ponders over, but delightfully, it is not the main focus of the mind-boggling plot. Chronology is not something the films’ narrative adheres to, and it all becomes brutally abstract as soon as the topic of hallucinations is broached. As time goes on, we are no longer privileged with knowing which events are real and which are fantasy
One might argue that in questioning whether some of the events take place, the film is trying to remind us that in fact none of these events took place, that the film itself is nothing more than a simulacra of reality, or (if you want to get really philosophical) a simulacra of our own perception of reality, which itself is crowded with simulacrum and simulations that we have accepted as commonplace. For example, social media.
Folman not only delivers on a follow-up to his last film, he surpasses it in almost every respect. It isn’t quite as immediate as Waltz, which is very much of its time. Yet this has the advantage of being a timeless piece, one that will be appreciated for decades to come, as it focuses on the Postmodern condition.
As mentioned, the animation is a crucial part in telling the story, but the quality of the animation deserves praise also. It is one of the most mature presentations of the medium you are likely to see. Referring to it as a cartoon feels almost like blasphemy, as it commands more respect than that. It is whimsical at times, but don’t be fooled. There are plenty of moments of oppressive despair and even horror in The Congress’ two hour running time.
On a final note, Robin Wright has been out of the limelight for quite a number of years. She was an icon of the 80’s and early 90’s before falling into obscurity.
This film, if it gains a wide release, is almost certainly going to catapult her high up into the indie/art-house scene. She delivers her voice-work with true finesse, lending depth and emotion to her animated self.
However it is her moment in the scanning booth that truly overwhelms. This may be due to the realization that dawns in this sequence, but there is no denying that she delivers an astonishing display of emotion, on cue, in a heartbreaking and truly striking manner.
The Congress. A part animated, part live-action, all fiction, all reality, totally engrossing and highly intelligent adventure into the human mind and its perspective on reality.
Score: 5/5
Written by Stephen Hill
