The Congress is an enjoyable sci-fi mess.
The Congress
Grade: B
Director: Ari Folman (Waltz with Bashir)
Screenplay: Stanislaw Lem (novel), Folman
Cast: Robin Wright (A Most Wanted Man), Harvey Keitel (Reservoir Dogs)
Runtime: 122 min
by John DeSando
Robin Wright: “What will you do with this . . . thing that you call Robin Wright?”
These days Robin Wright has TV work aplenty and new movies, including the sci-fimindbender, The Congress. Playing herself but with no work at 44 years old, Wright is offered her final contract, which offers to scan all of her, including emotions, to be worked in unlimited ways in films for the next two decades.
Because The Congress is adapted from StanislawLem’ssci-fi novel, The Futurological Congress, brain-challenging is in order. The allegorical possibilities are many, from the search for eternal youth implicit in film and media, or ageism depending on your attitude, to the substitution of drug-induced fantasy for reality.
Additionally, the contract, the control, and the fantasy smartly satirize the studio system of the 1930’s and ‘40’s. While Wright does agree to the contract with Miramount pictures, headed by Jeff Green (an oily and charming Danny Huston), the film too subtly agonizes about the loss of individuality and spontaneity with this super CGI.
Animated segments with Wright show how evolved she and the population are under the false realities. Coherence is sacrificed because the cross between reality and fantasy is confusing, leaving the audience not sure what the purpose of these discursive moments is. As our heroine, Wright never gives in to her hope of healing her physically-challenged son in a real world with real doctors and maybe a real profession of acting.
Although the film feels like a series of episodes loosely knitted under the figurative umbrella, the animations are exquisitely rendered in a fantasy style like Cameron’s Avatar—sensual and unreal, and the scenes of the downtrodden under the earth are reminiscent of Lang’s Metropolis.
In fact, the icons of this futuristic world are avatars created out of movie stars, making it an indictment of our celebrity culture as well as the passive population itself.
If I sound like I understood the plot twists and turns, I did not fully. Yet I am looking forward to another viewing wherein I will see even more in this complex and challenging sci-fi:
Robin Wright: “Does that make sense? Or is this just in my mind?”
John DeSando, a Los Angeles Press Club first-place winner for National Entertainment Journalism, hosts WCBE’s It’s Movie Time and co-hosts Cinema Classics. Contact him at JDeSando@Columbus.rr.com
