Sleep Furiously
U, Key Cities
Fireflies in the Garden
15, Key Cities
Sleep Furiously is a film (obviously) which, by rights, should make you Sleep Soundly (very) as there is no narrative, almost no dialogue to speak of, and no regular characters beyond the driver of a mobile library who at least takes hair-pin bends at 80mph with his eyes closed. Only joking; I don’t think he ever gets out of first gear. Maybe, on his birthday, he does shift up to second, but I don’t think we’ll ever know for sure.
Directed by Gideon Koppel, it’s about the tiny Welsh farming community of Trefeurig, which is where his parents settled as refugees from Nazi Germany, and where he grew up, and it’s basically a collage of shifting images capturing both people and the natural world: a pig giving birth to piglets; a field being ploughed; a Victoria sponge being baked; two columns of sheep moving across a rain-thrashed mountain; the driver of that mobile library pulling in for a cuppa from his Thermos, whoopee! It is dull, spectacularly dull but — and this is where it gets weird — it is also peculiarly compelling, affecting, atmospheric and sublime.
Comments
Join the debate for just $5 for 3 months
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for $5.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just $5 for 3 monthsAlready a subscriber? Log in