The Congress is an eclectic
Director Ari Folman adapts Stanislav Lem's novel, The Futurological Congress, into a multi-media film/animation starring Robin Wright as herself, in a fictional world where actors on the verge of fading can have themselves scanned and sampled and preserved forever in a virtual existence for everyone to watch, admire, and if so desired, consume.
The congress takes Guy Debord's gaze to a whole new level, leading us by the hand and transcending us through liminal space from spectator, to participant, to the observed. We are both the us and the them; the we and the Other. The Congress is both humorous and terrifying, real and false. Animation takes up where reality leaves off, allowing us to full engage in Folman's vision, and asks more questions than it answers, which is the whole point of the film: a philosopher's playground so to speak.
The congress takes Guy Debord's gaze to a whole new level, leading us by the hand and transcending us through liminal space from spectator, to participant, to the observed. We are both the us and the them; the we and the Other. The Congress is both humorous and terrifying, real and false. Animation takes up where reality leaves off, allowing us to full engage in Folman's vision, and asks more questions than it answers, which is the whole point of the film: a philosopher's playground so to speak.