The Other Side of Sleep | Review

Coming in from the Berlinale Talent Campus’ class of 2008, Rebecca Daly shows here in her first feature-length film that she needs a bit more time to finesse her craft before cozying up with such familiar art house themes like depression and dream-state consciousness. The Other Side of Sleep fits right in with the recent slew of precocious filmmakers who are in a fever rush to be the next big thing in austere cinema, but this snoozer lies squarely in the ‘pretender’ pad. Mood and atmosphere are confused throughout with disconnected tedium, and it’s exactly fare of this nature that gives deliberate, contemplative cinema its bad wrap.

Sleep begins with a dream sequence in which our protagonist Arlene is sprawled out beside another figure in the middle of the woods just before dawn. This other figure is that of a dead young woman named Gina, which sets off a hazy murder mystery that will be the vague focus for the rest of the film. As this first sequence is shown to reside in Arlene’s mind (she was dreaming it, after all), we watch her mindlessly graze through the outskirts of town trying to figure out the whos, hows, and ifs pertaining to her disturbing find. Audiences will be throwing mental nudges toward our leading lady to get a move on as she takes her sweet time working up the motivation to expedite the police investigation, apparently trying mightily to distend the material past the 75-minute minimum running time for feature film qualification.

The detective work eventually kicks off, and while the victim’s boyfriend remains a prime suspect, Arlene becomes increasingly close to him and his sister. Vague references are made to suggest Arlene as the culprit – a possibility since the opening scene – but details and conclusions are scarce so as to better integrate a ‘thriller’ genre edge. We wonder if Arlene is a sleepwalking murderer just as we should fear for her life as she gets disconcertingly intimate with the other suspects, potentially putting her in harm’s way. It’s impossible to really become complicit with the dramatic nature of her situation, though, among such a groggy and obtuse mise-en-scene and intentionally anti-psychological non-characterizations.

Antonia Campbell-Hughes as Arlene is serviceable in an undemanding role that really only calls for stoicism. Her droopy and banal features suggest a weary exhaustion that truly encompasses her insomniac’s separation from the flow of the world around her. Technical specs are likewise believable yet unambitious, as long, still shots of barely lit mornings steep the aura in a naturalistic form of lethargy. Ominous bass tones and slow-motion effects (as if it really needed them) suspend Daly’s tediously manufactured slumber to its nth degree.

Reviewed on May 14th at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival – Directors’ Fortnight section.

Rating 1.5 stars