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Richard Linklater + Cast Members in attendance for introduction
Preceded by a freshly cut trailer for SLACKER 2011 - be the first to get a glimpse of the remake!
Industry Print Shop printing on -demand custom shirts with original SLACKER artwork
SLACKER is a loving extended-family photo album, an insider’s ethnographic study of (mainly) 20-somethings trying to make sense of their world at the dawn of the 1990s. With an intriguing style inspired by Ophuls and Bresson, Richard Linklater’s break-out film follows an array of characters talking about ideas from books, movies, TV shows, music, and occasionally from direct observation and analysis. There is no “disorder” or “deficit” in this A.D.D-structured film. Instead, just like flipping through multiple channels on cable TV, we move from one person to another, walking around Austin, picking up bits and pieces of views, thoughts, fears, delusional certainties, and paranoid fantasies from dozens of post-punk, post-college young adults who are avoiding 9-5 jobs, families, commitments, and growing up. Somewhat like their situationist cultural forebears, they create a life by strolling about, talking and hanging out, and checking out what’s up. And most of them are interesting and some even endearing, especially the ones who do try to make sense of the rampant chaos that reality has come to be.
Amoral in some cases, they do little harm to society, even though some talk about anarchy, blowing up the Texas capitol, or giving out guns for some dogma-free revolution. There are really no important middle-aged people in SLACKER, but a couple of elderly men represent an earlier era of anarchy and philosophical analysis of culture. There is no exclamation point in the title, because Linklater is not hurling an invective against his peers, this enjoyable collective of slackers. Yet, Lord knows, Linklater himself was no slacker but a purposeful observer and recorder of his social milieu, all carefully preserved in this film described in the end credits as “based on fact.” What is remarkable upon viewing the film once more in 2011 is how much of “that Austin” has disappeared under new buildings. But don’t think for one minute that SLACKER can be enjoyed only as a work of nostalgia. Besides being audaciously structured, the film contains eerily prescient statements and ideas that remain relevant two decades later. And would anybody dare say that the lives of 20-somethings have gotten easier or more understandable?
SLACKER may very well encapsulate the last time that many young people had the time and desire to contemplate the meaning of life and enjoy a pressure-free existence.--Chale Nafus