Animation, SciFi,

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Watch The Congress (2013) in HD

• MOVIE page: The Congress (2013)
• Rate: 6.3/10 total 597 votes 
• Genre: Animation | Sci-Fi
• Runtime: 122 min
• Filming Location: Los Angeles, California, USA
• Budget: PLN 34,148,170 (estimated)
• Director: Ari Folman
• Stars: Robin Wright, Harvey Keitel, Jon Hamm | See full cast and crew
• Original Music By: Max Richter   
• Sound Mix: Dolby Atmos
• Plot Keyword: Actress | Airport | Hallucination | Congress | Part Animation

Writing Credits By:

• Stanislaw Lem  novel The Futurological Congress and
• Ari Folman  adaptation

     

Plot: An aging, out-of-work actress accepts one last job, though the consequences of her decision affect her in ways she didn't consider. |  »

Story: An aging, out-of-work actress accepts one last job, though the consequences of her decision affect her in ways she didn't consider.

Produced By:

• Reinhard Brundig known as producer
• Sébastien Delloye known as producer
• Piotr Dzieciol known as producer
• Diana Elbaum known as co-producer
• Ari Folman known as producer
• David Grumbach known as producer
• Eitan Mansuri known as producer
• Ewa Puszczynska known as producer
• Jeremiah Samuels known as executive producer
• Robin Wright known as producer

FullCast & Crew:

• Robin Wright known as Robin Wright
• Harvey Keitel known as Al
• Jon Hamm known as Dylan Truliner (voice)
• Paul Giamatti known as Dr. Barker
• Kodi Smit-McPhee known as Aaron Wright
• Danny Huston known as Jeff
• Sami Gayle known as Sarah Wright
• Michael Stahl-David known as Steve
• Michael Landes known as Maxi
• Sarah Shahi known as Michelle
• Ed Corbin known as Charlie
• Christopher B. Duncan known as Christopher Ryne
• Evan Ferrante known as Tom Cruise
• Frances Fisher
• John Lacy known as Gate Guard
• Jill Maddrell known as Resident
• Jörg Vincent Malotki known as Man in Zeppelin
• Don McManus known as Reeve Bobs
• Kevin Thompson known as Ralph
• Cooper Thornton known as Head Physician v27
• August Wittgenstein known as Travis
• Matthew Wolf known as Adult Aaron Wright

Production Companies:

• Bridgit Folman Film Gang
• Pandora Filmproduktion
• Opus Film
• Paul Thiltges Distributions
• Entre Chien et Loup
• Liverpool

The Congress (2013) Review by lbolard from United States

By Linda Winsh-Bolard

Israeli director Ari Folman is best known for " Waltz with Bashir , "an animated film with moral questions.

Don't expect anything similar.

Congress is a loose adaption of a novel by Stanislaw Lem. Lemenvisioned a society under a dictatorship, whether local or global isunclear in the film, where the ruling class lives in real world andsubjects majority of citizens to poverty and fear. Remaining citizensspend their lives under chemically induced dream. In their dream theycan decide who and where they are, while their sub consciousness isreacting to a chemical that transports them into colorful, unreal worldof combined dreams.

Ari Fulman frames his film around the story of aging actress RobinWright (she plays herself) who, after extremely lucky break, madenumber of irresponsible and bad choices and ended up with few options.Robin, who has two children, an ambitious daughter and a disabled son,decides to let the studio to scan her image to be used in all kinds ofcomputer generated films.

Some twenty years later Robin drives her Porsche Cayman into a desertto enter Abrahama City, a city where everyone, with the help of anampule of chemicals, becomes an animated character; some of themselves,some of others. Their chemically induced reality is actually just theirperception of the world.

The adventure ends badly and Robin is frozen to be revived when thetechnology needed help her becomes available. That takes decades andwhen she does wake up, the world is a colorful comics.

The film follows Lem' s idea loosely, but there is a dark, real side onthe other side of this painting.

The film is wordy. Particularly when the characters are in real world,the monologues and dialogs are lengthy, over explanatory and oftenshould have been cut down.

Stripped of color and Lem's vision of the future, the story becomes ajourney of devoted mother to her disabled son. Robin seems to expectthat everyone must bend to her need to be with her children and standby her son. I found that unrealistic. In Robin's expectations and alsoin the written self obsession with sacrifices of a Mother, capitalletter intended.

It irritated me that Robin was so clearly thought to be so special byso many, when I could not find anything special about her. I am sotired of stories of the poor, lucky ones who had troubles to handletheir luck. Would they rather be unknown and poor?

Lem's philosophy of dictatorship that keeps people in the line byfeeding them drug induced dreams is somewhat complicated: the filmstates that once the chemical is inhaled, the person ceases to exist inreal world- in that case, do the bodies evaporate? It is not straightup killing, Robin came back using another chemical, so what is it? Isthere no shortage of labor in the real world, if so many "cease toexist"? Who decides to stay and endure poverty, helplessness and hardwork? Why?

And why would the dictators use such chemical? It might reduce theenemy, but it will make it hard to run a society with able few peoplein it.

About half of the film is acted, half animated. The acting, the film isstar studded, is generally good even though, as I said, unwieldy lines,heavy handed and unnecessary, crowd the sound, ut the actors handlethem better than most would.. Robin is standoffish and distant Al, heragent (Harvey Keitel) an old manipulator, Paul Giamatti the doctor inthe know and so on.

I have heard that the absent Tom Cruise played by Evant Ferrante missedon his best film part.

The animation is colorful, lush, sprouting and adds to confusion in thevein of Avatar. Number of characters parade around the screenapparently just playing the background to Robin and her followers.

Exploring the power of mind and politics gets largely lost in all that.Still, if you enjoy combination of animation and action, sci-fi andconspiracy, it might just work for you.

Directed by: Ari Folman Written:Stanislaw Lem (novel), Ari Folman(adaptation) , Camera: Michal Englert Stars: Robin Wright, HarveyKeitel, Jon Hamm, Paul Giamatti, Danny Huston and others

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The Congress (2013) Review by Dr_Horst_Schimanski-Galilei from Germany

After his Oscar-nominated animation film Waltz with Bashir, Ari Folmandid mostly writing work for the last five years, for Israeli, Serbianand even Argentinian TV shows. But now, he's back with an incrediblyinnovative take on how movie industry will emerge in the coming decadesand what decisions actors will have to make as a consequence.

I think the one thing which makes this film so impressive is how Folmanmanaged to link the live action and animation sequence which may havebeen unmatched in history so far (not that there are too many filmsthat tried it). The film lasts roughly 2 hours. The first 45 minutes orso are exclusively live action and everything afterward is animated(with small exceptions right towards the end). It centers on actressRobin Wright who plays herself in a very emotionally stripped anddisarming performance reflecting on her career choices and future inthe profession as an actress. While she's clearly the center ofattention we also get decent supporting performances from Danny Huston,Harvey Keitel and Jon Hamm. Giamatti, Smit-McPhee and Gayle's parts aretoo insignificant to really make an impact. Huston, however, has quitethe money scene when he, as a ruthless agent, reflects on Wright'scareer choices and delivers an equally convincing speech just likeKeitel when he talks to Robin about his way into the industry whileshe's in the box unable to continue. Mad Men star Jon Hamm only doesvoice-work (sorry ladies!) in the animated sequences, but pretty muchnails the part as well.

As emotionally investing as the first half was, I had some struggleswith the story when the film entered the animation part. They couldhave probably cut 10-15 minutes there and it would not have decreasedthe film's overall quality. The Steve-Jobs-reference felt out of placetoo. But it was still extremely well-made. I have to say I wasn't asmoved by the plot of Wright in relation to her son as I would haveliked to (except the final meeting of Wright and Giamatti's characterwhich was truly emotional) and as the whole film pretty much turnedaround this storyline, I mainly enjoyed the brilliant animation withoutreally thinking much deeper about the plot there and it may have been agood decision. It's done with incredible dedication to detail and Ibelieve Folman topped his work from "Waltz with Bashir" with this one.So it was certainly worth the five years he made us wait. Very muchrecommended and, without a doubt, one of the most creative andinnovative movies of the decade so far.

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The Congress (2013) Review by Bastian Pietsch from Germany

I just saw The Congress at the opening night of the Fantasy Filmfest inCologne. I went in having no special expectations but seeing awell-made movie that somehow surprises me. Well I have to say, I neversaw anything like this! The Congress starts out as a drama about anactress who has already had her best days. But soon it becomes asurreal critique on commercial industry and the exploitation offeelings for the use of profit at all. The combination of real film andanimated film really does the job extremely well. You'll neverunderstand the feeling of delusion better than when The Congress cutsfrom an hour- long orgy of flashing colours and amazingly designedcharacters and creatures in the world of hallucinations to the harshtruth in the reality. On top of the great storyline and the excellentanimation, Robin Wright does a remarkable job in acting as herself.Also, if you are familiar with cinema, there will be plenty ofreferences - some very subtle, some not at all - that add a lot ofhumor to the movie. All in all The Congress is an experience like thereare just a few in cinema history. It's combination of styles (allequally well crafted) becomes a journey from love to loss to ecstasy toagony and therewith the excellent visualization of an surprising topic.

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