The Congress (2013)

The first 40 minutes of the films are in live action where Robin Wright plays a version of herself who's promising acting career didn't really flesh out after her success in the 80's and 90's while her while taking care of her family and the film industry is revolutionizing itself by using scans of actors to make films. Then for the next hour, it turns into an animated film which stays close to the novel The Futurological Congress, a completely surreal experience.The first stands as a commentary on how the film industry is exploiting artists and the fascist standpoint of the studios along with all the ethical and moral conundrums. But it's when the animated section starts that we understand that it's actually a much wider problem we are seeing here, it's not just the film industry but the whole world that is forgetting the true nature of being human and is embracing the virtual world of lies.Although it throws some of its concept on your face and may feel a little over ambitious to some it's an epic journey that is truly a unique experience. Ari Folman is definitely a genius helming films like this one and Waltz With Bashir

This film has been on the 'to watch' list for years and finally now that i have time for it, i'm wishing i'd taken an ampule into the congress. What started out as a slow, yet fascinating step into the almost now world of entertainment where technology's advancement is able to immortalize actors\characters (eg. young Princess Leia or Peter Cushing in Rogue One, Paul Walker in the fast and furious even Oliver Read in Gladiator) at the halfway point turns into a slower trippy, incoherent, nonsensical, European animation that has you constantly scratching at your head so that come the last 10 minutes you simply just want it to end (and don't expect to find a conclusion in the congress).At over 2hrs it feels longer. Robin Wright pretty much only has one emotion. The animation was mostly fine and never wow. The original idea is squandered. The narrative becomes ever more confusing throughout the film, but you'll not care anyway because of the anti- climatic (twist?) ending.

The first 45 minutes was actually not bad at all, that part of the movie is filmed with real life people with Robin Wright playing some kind of version of herself.But then she enters a animation zone (I could explain it but I won't as it would possibly spoil something, plus it wouldn't make much sense if I did anyways).Anyways yeah so then the movie including Robin herself turns animated and it quickly goes down hill.First of all the animations to me are downright ugly (to me at least, I'm sure some would disagree) but the biggest issue I have with the movie is the plot... or should I say, lack there of.It just turns into a random soup of nonsense with potential sub-plots that none of them are fully examined but it just jumps from one sub-plot to another as if in a dreamlike state, which granted is probably intentional but it makes it really hard to follow or to even care to follow tbh.And the dialogue is incredibly pretentious as well, which I'm sure a lot of people will see as poetic on some level or something but me I just found it incredibly annoying.There's probably a bunch of metaphors or symbolisms in this to make up for the lack of coherency in plot that I'm completely missing, but what good does that do to me as a regular viewer? Nothing.I was tempted many times to hit the fast-forward button (or even the stop-button for that matter) but I decided to suffer through the nonsense in hopes for at least some sort of pay-off in the end... But no.I was initially gonna give it a 3 because I did enjoy the first 45 minutes but considering how much I didn't like the following 1 hour and 10 minutes that just ruined the whole movie for me as a whole so yeah I'm gonna give it a 2.

A movie by Ari Folman, who made the fantastic "Waltz with Bashir (2008)".Robin Wright plays herself in this weird drama/sci-fi movie that is half live action and half animation.The first half of the movie is awful. Poorly directed, badly acted by the entire cast, poorly written and terribly slow.This movie is a mess and almost unwatchable. And it's too bad because during the second half of the movie there is some great animation and score, especially in the last quarter.Skip this movie. Watch (or re-watch) "Waltz with Bashir (2008)" instead.