Sleep (Fantasia Fest)
**Seen for the 2020 Fantasia International Film Festival**
There’s a lot in “Sleep” that is really good, but too much of it that lags, complicates the plot, or just plain loses our interest. By the time the film ended, I couldn’t help but think about Ari Aster’s “Hereditary” and “Midsommar” to a certain extent; there’s plenty in it to distinguish from those movies, but there’s an angle in this movie that takes it away from the purely psychological into something larger, resulting in a loss of interest on our part.
The film begins with a taught psychological mystery unfolding, as Marlene (Sandra Hüller) is struggling with a terrifying reality. You see, her nightmares are vivid, and feel real. Her daughter, Mona (Gro Swantje Kohlhof), is her only family, and it’s been a struggle for her to take care of her. One day, Marlene’s condition leads her to be hospitalized after a night where she trashes a hotel room in the town of Steinbach. Mona goes to take care of her, and ends up staying in the hotel, run by a local man (Otto, played by August Schmölzer) and his wife. It’s not long until she finds herself dealing with the same intense nightmares her mother has been inflicted with, leading down a rabbit hole she did not expect.
The imagery in “Sleep,” brought by director Michael Venus and cinematographer Marius von Felbert, is truly haunting and memorable, especially as we see Marlene and Mona struggling to differentiate their dreams from reality. The first half of “Sleep” focuses on this aspect of the narrative, and it’s easily the most immersive part of the story. As Mona investigates more at the hotel, we catch on fairly quickly that the hotel might be part of the reason for Marlene’s condition, especially as Mona exhibits similar behavior. It’s also where the film starts to get overly complicated, and the film becomes something akin to “The Shining,” which would not be a bad thing, except it gets away from the personal connection we are supposed to feel with Marlene and Mona, and focuses more on a larger “conspiracy” within the town that is less interesting. The film makes its way back to that personal place by the end, but it’s hard to feel invested in how it gets there.
