Waking Life meets Alois Nebel but without the rotoscoping. This melancholic portrait of an ex-musician that became a taxi driver, is a beautifully drawn animated film with lots of dialogue about life, love and loss. With some minor contemporary criticisms and lots of religious contemplations, L'arte della felicità knows how to captivate its audiences, provoke some thoughts and, most of all, create a gloomy yet meditative atmosphere. This might be one of those films that grows on you after seeing it. Rewatching it later in life might have another effect exactly because of that. Time will tell. Nevertheless, since this picture resembles one of my favorite movies of all time (Waking Life), it was bound to be compared to that and, of course, it isn't as good. Some of the storyline in L'arte della felicità is quite boring, which slows the experience down a bit. Nonetheless a very good and partly successful attempt of bringing something interesting on the (animated) screen. Nicely done!
Review of L'arte della felicità
