The Congress (2013 film)

Robin Wright plays a fictionalized version of herself as an aging actress with a reputation for being fickle and unreliable, so much so that nobody is willing to offer her roles. Her son, Aaron, suffers from Usher syndrome that is slowly destroying his sight and hearing. With the help of Dr. Barker (Paul Giamatti), Robin is barely able to stave off the worst effects of her son's decline.

Jeff Green (Danny Huston), a representative of a state-of-the-art virtual entertainment company, Miramount Studios, comes to her with an offer to buy her likeness and digitize her into a computer-animated version of herself. After initially turning down the offer, Robin reconsiders after realizing she may be unable to find work with the emergence of this new technology, and agrees to sell the film rights to her digital image to Miramount Studios in exchange for a hefty sum of money and she promises never to act again. After her body is digitally scanned, the studio will be able to make films starring her, using only computer-generated characters. By then, Robin's virtual persona has become the star of a popular science-fiction film franchise, "Rebel Robot Robin".

Twenty years later, as her contract is about to expire, Robin travels to Abrahama City where she will participants to speak at Miramount's entertainment convention called the "Futurological Congress" and also renew her contract. Abrahama City is an animated, surreal utopia that created from figments of people's imaginations, where anyone can assume to become an animated avatars of themselves, they're required to using a drugs and chemical substances that would allow them to enter a mutable illusory state; they can become anything they want to be. While discussing the new contract with Jeff Green of Miramount Nagasaki, Robin learns that the studio has developed a new technology that will allow anyone to transform themselves into her. Robin agrees to the deal but has a crisis of conscience and does not believe she or anyone else should be turned into a product.

Asked to speak at the Congress, Robin publicly voices her views, unimpressed and enraging the hosts and the councils of the Congress. Shortly afterwards, the Congress is attacked by the group of rebels and protestors ideologically opposed to the technology industry. During the attack, Robin is rescued and protected by Dylan Truliner (Jon Hamm) but is soon captured by "Miramount Police". Still in the animated world, Robin is executed by Jeff. Within the animated world, doctors decide that Robin has become so intoxicated by the hallucinogen that she must be frozen until a time when a treatment for her mental illness is found.

Many years later, Robin is revived in the animated world and reunites with Dylan. He reveals that technology has improved so that anything is possible, that people can take on whatever form they wish and the ego no longer exists. Dylan tells Robin that he had once been Miramount's lead animator for her films. The two fall in love as they take a journey through the animated, imaginary world, however, Robin is still desperate to return to the real world and be with her son. The only way to do that is using a capsule that Dylan was given by Miramount, his reward for twenty years of service. The capsule is only powerful enough for one person and Dylan has no more. Dylan gives it to Robin, begging her not to look at the real him when she returns to the real world.

Re-entering the un-animated real world, Robin find herself in dystopian environment and the inhabitants severely dysfunctional. Those who are still able to cope in the real world hover over its ruined cities in large airships. On one of the ships, Robin finds Doctor Barker, who reveals the state of the world in which most people have changed to an existence in an animated, unreal world. Hoping to find Aaron, Robin's hopes are dashed when Barker reveals that Aaron "crossed over" into the animated world only six months earlier, when his condition had left him virtually blind and deaf. Because Aaron likely created a new identity for himself in the animated world, there is no way for anyone to find him.

While Robin can return to an animated existence, she cannot return to the one she left behind, including Dylan, because that world was not real but created by her consciousness. Dr. Barker gives Robin an inhalation ampule that will allow her to return to the animated world. Taking it, Robin experiences memories of her son's life, being born, seeing his mother for the first time, as an infant watching his mother act, as an older child being taken to Dr. Barker, as a young adult watching his mother leave for The Congress, finding his mother in suspended animation, and finally taking the capsule that will take him away from the real world forever. Robin, having the same appearance as Aaron, discovers him in the middle of an animated desert.

• Robin Wright as Robin Wright
• Paul Giamatti as Dr. Barker
• Jon Hamm as Dylan Truliner (voice) [6]
• Danny Huston as Jeff Green
• Harvey Keitel as Al
• Kodi Smit-McPhee as Aaron Wright
• Sami Gayle as Sarah Wright
• Michael Stahl-David as Steve
• August Wittgenstein as Travis
• Jörg Vincent Malotki as Man in Zeppelin

While some elements of the film were added by Ari Folman, others were based on the science fiction novel The Futurological Congress by Stanisław Lem. Similarly to Lem's Ijon Tichy, the actress is split between delusional and real mental states. In an early interview about the film, Folman said,[7]

"There is certainly nothing based on Lem in the first part of the movie. The second part is definitely different, but I used Lem's The Futurological Congress more as a source of inspiration, rather than the basis of the screenplay."

Later, at the official website of the film, in an interview, Folman says that the idea to put Lem's work to film came to him during his film school. He describes how he reconsidered Lem's allegory of communist dictatorship into a more current setting, namely, the dictatorship in the entertainment industry, and expresses his belief that he preserved the spirit of the book despite going far away from it.[8]

The animation was created by Bridgit Folman Films Gang, based in Israel, supervising 6 animation studios worldwide ("studio 352" in Luxemburg, "walking the dog" in Belgium, "bitteschoen" in Berlin, "studio Rakete" in Hamburg, "Studio Orange" in Poland and "Snipple" in the Philippines). As in Waltz with Bashir, Folman worked with David Polonsky as the artistic director and Yoni Goodman as the animation director. Principal live action filming was done in the United States and Germany from February to March 2011.[6][9] Folman began working on the film in 2008,[10] securing additional financing in 2011 from French bank Coficine-Natixis.[11] The film was completed and released in 2013.[4]

Max Richter, who had previously worked with Folman in the movie Vals Im Bashir, created the soundtrack of The Congress.[12]

Many of the songs are composed by Richter himself, but the soundtrack also includes Franz Schubert's Andante con Moto from Trio in E-major, D929, Chopin's Nocturne Op.27-1 in C# minor, Forever Young from Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen's If It Be Your Will. These last two songs were covered by Robin Wright.[13]

Milan Entertainment, Inc. launched the soundtrack (in digital format) on July 2, 2013.[14]

The Congress received positive reviews. On Rotten Tomatoes it has a 73% approval rating, based on reviews from 107 critics, with an average rating of 6.80/10. The website's critical consensus states: "The Congress rises on the strength of Robin Wright's powerful performance, with enough ambitious storytelling and technical thrills to overcome its somewhat messy structure."[15] On Metacritic, the film has a 63/100 rating based on reviews from 31 critics, signifying "generally favorable reviews".[16]

Keith Uhlich of The A.V. Club named The Congress the sixth-best film of 2014, tying it with the re-release of Level Five.[17]

In 2013, The Congress won the Best Animated Feature Film Award at the 26th European Film Awards.[18]

The movie won 26th European Film Awards to the best animated feature film in 2013, as well as the Directors' Fortnight in the Cannes Film Festival. That same year it won the Sitges Film Festival's Critics Award too. In 2013 it was also nominated for Best Animation Film in the Gijon Film Festival.[19]

• The Congress at IMDb
• The Congress at Box Office Mojo
• The Congress at Rotten Tomatoes
• The Congress at Metacritic
• The Congress, review on Culture.pl