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Diablo Joe Reviews: Schlaf aka Sleep

Posted in Diablo Joe Reviews by Neal at 03:46, Nov 07 2021

"Sleep" (Schlaf)
review by Diablo Joe

Streaming this month on Arrow-Player.com





"Sleep" (Schlaf)

Dreams and their nastier counterpart, nightmares, have long been a part of fantasy and horror. Dreams are the opposite of reality while still being as much a part of the experience of our psyche. It is no wonder that the topic is a rich mine for ideas and stories.



Long plagued by mysterious and troubling dreams filled with familiar and seemingly portentous imagery, Marlene travels to the rural German town of Stainbach in search of answers. Visiting the hotel she has repeatedly seen in her visions, Marlene falls into a catatonic fugue. When her daughter Mona travels to Stainbach and meets the obsequious hotel owners, Otto and Lore, she finds herself drawn into the town's mysterious and accursed history. And soon, into her mother's horrifying nightmares as well.



"Sleep" is at times stunningly haunting and visually beautiful. Often it is tensely unsettling. It is also maddeningly opaque and confounding. The further we get into the story, the more the layers of the town’s mystery are unveiled. It’s an intricate and darkly fascinating series of revelations that somehow just never entirely unfolds with the totality we seek.



Director Michael Venus wastes no time getting things moving, and he keeps a tight grip on the uneasiness throughout. But that same expedience is part of the film’s problem. Too many of the revelations are incomplete, leaving us often confused. Characters lack context, and there is a mish-mash of subplots that are never fully realized. A bizarre scene with Mona, the hotelier’s son Christoph, the hotel maid and the local owner of a New Age shop, while a visual feast of contrasts, doesn’t lead anywhere. And the ending raises more questions than answers—and not in a good way.



This isn’t to say that “Sleep” doesn’t have much to commend as well. As stated earlier, the film is genuinely stunning. The cinematography has a simple, spare beauty that more filmmakers should seek to emulate. Venus’s vision of a dream world is wholly original. It rarely resorts to familiar, tired tropes of nightmares and disconnection. Instead, it often seats itself firmly, with only the most subtle clues, into otherwise unremarkably ordinary tableaus. Who hasn’t wondered if they’re awake or dreaming?



As Mona, Gro Swantje Kohlhof gives a standout performance in a film filled with solid acting. As the film progresses she demands the audience’s fascination and attention. Hers is a presence both subtle and electrifying. Also of note, August Schmölzer gives Otto a menacingly robust masculinity, and veteran German actor Marion Kracht excels as his wife, Lore.



It’s a shame that “Sleep” fails where it does because the promise of what does work is so remarkable and often original that it disappoints mostly by failing to be great. As such, it is a good film. At times, a very good one. But that unfulfilled potential, coupled with a really muddled and needlessly confounding coda, make “Sleep” worthwhile but not quite a must-see.

This devil of a reviewer gives “Sleep” (“Schlaf”) 3 out of 5 imps.




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