The Congress

Ari Folman’s follow up to Waltz with Bashir is a hallucinatory fable about an actress whose digital image is controlled by a Hollywood studio.

Based on a novel by Stanislaw Lem (Solaris), Ari Folman’s mind-bending follow up to the critically lauded Waltz with Bashir tells the story of Robin Wright, an actress struggling to find work in Hollywood who accepts a lucrative offer from ‘Miramount’ studio to have her image digitised and controlled by the company.

Twenty years after relinquishing her identity, the contract has expired and she is summoned to a mysterious congress taking place in an animated world. Although radically different in content to his previous political documentary, Folman’s hallucinatory slice of sci-fi eccentricity shares a similarly daring stylistic approach. As a scathing satire on the film industry it’s fascinating; as an exercise in formal experimentation it’s never less than dazzling.