Tuesday, February 18, 2020

Undone

In the last years of my father's life, he was terribly sick. He was bipolar. He told me, on more than one occasion, he was going to go back in time and save Princess Diana before her accident; a noble endeavour. When I stumbled across Undone, the Amazon animated series starting Rosa Salazar as Alma, and Bob Odenkirk (Better Call Saul) as her father, I was fascinated. The animation style is done in rotoscope -  they film it with real actors and then paint over it all. It reminded me of Richard Linklater's Waking Life  in both its look, pacing, and its existential angst. Alma is a 28 year old philosophical young lady who is bored with life's repetitions, who acts impulsively at times, makes poor choices, and tends to make the show all about her, but her self reflection on everything endears us to her. Alma, through an act of reckless driving, almost dies in a car crash. This is when everything goes astray. Undone gets trippy. Time gets messed up for Alma. She ends up having long conversations with her long dead father. Together they hatch a plot for Alma to go back in time and save him (her father) from a car crash; a noble endeavour. A first we aren't sure if this is just her injured brain or maybe it's something more. In the end, it's a portrait of somebody with schizophrenia. It's somewhat sad, it's also quite a high to be manic and going through all this exciting time-travelling, reality-bending stuff. This is what crazy looks like. To me it felt authentic and I believe it warrants your time and attention. Catch this one on Amazon.

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