At long last Slacker is available in the UK for sale and rental. Richard Linklater film (followed by the more commercially successful Dazed and Confused, Before Sunrise, School of Rock and just recently A Scanner Darkly) follows a day in the life of Generation X going about there business in Austin, Texas.

Starting with a cameo from the director as he returns back from out of town, the narrative simply follows different sets of people as they pass each other in the street.As people pass each other in the street the camera will pan off with a new subject and follow them through an episode in their daily lifeWhilst full of arty and pretentious conversations at the same time it offers an insight into a generation, a time and place.Full of paranoia, aspiration and resignation in equal amount the immediacy of the film borught home through the minimal amount of editing, most scenes being shot in one take.

Some genuinely fascinating dialogs pass between the character, one of my favourites being the guy obsessed with video;

“To me, my thing is, a video image is much more powerful and useful than an actual event. Like back when I used to go out, when I was last out, I was walking down the street and this guy, that came barreling out of a bar, fell right in front of me, and he had a knife right in his back, landed right on the ground and…

It didn’t look like blood. The hue was off. I couldn’t adjust the hue. I was seeing it for real, but it just wasn’t right. And I didn’t even see the knife impact on the body. I missed that part.”

Don’t watch expecting anything to happen in particular, but if you are of a voyeuristic nature then it’s an absolute joy to watch.